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International Ctattatum Juries 

EDITED BY 

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A. M., LL. D. 



Volume IX. 



INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. 

Edited by W. T. Harris. 



It is proposed to publish, under the above title, a library for teachers 
and school managers, and text-books for normal classes. The aim will 
be to provide works of a useful practical character in the broadest sense. 
The following conspectus will show the ground to be covered by the series : 

I.— History Of .Education. (a.) Original systems as ex- 
pounded by their founders, (b.) Critical histories which set forth the 
customs of the past and point out their advantages and defects, explain- 
ing the grounds of their adoption, and also of their final disuse. 

II. — Educational Criticism, (a.) The noteworthy arraign- 
ments which educational reformers have put forth against existing sys- 
tems : these compose the classics of pedagogy, (b.) The critical histories 
above mentioned. 

III.— Systematic Treatises on the Theory of Edu- 
cation, (a.) Works written from the historical standpoint; these, 
for the most part, show a tendency to justify the traditional course of 
study and to defend the prevailing methods of instruction, (b.) Works 
written from critical standpoints, and to a greater or less degree revolu- 
tionary in their tendency. 

IV.— The Art Of Education. (a.) Works on instruction 
and discipline, and the practical details of the school-room, (b.) Works 
on the organization and supervision of schools. 

Practical insight into the educational methods in vogue can not be 
attained without a knowledge of the process by which they have come to 
be established. For this reason it is proposed to give special prominence 
to the history of the systems that have prevailed. 

Again, since history is incompetent to furnish the ideal of the future, 
it is necessary to devote large space to works of educational criticism. 
Criticism is the purifying process by which ideals are rendered clear and 
potent, so that progress becomes possible. 

History and criticism combined make possible a theory of the whole. 
For, with an ideal toward which the entire movement tends, and an ac- 
count of the phases that have appeared in time, the connected develop- 
ment of the whole can be shown, and all united into one system. 

Lastly, after the science, comes the practice. The art of education is 
treated in special works devoted to the devices and technical details use- 
ful in the school-room. 

It is believed that the teacher does not need authority so much as in- 
sight in matters of education. When he understands the theory of edu- 
cation and the history of its growth, and has matured his own point 
of view by careful study of the critical literature of education, then he is 
competent to select or invent such practical devices as are best adapted 
to his own wants. 

The series will contain works from European as well as American 
authors, and will be under the editorship of W. T. Harris, A. M., LL. D. 
The price for the volumes of the series will be $1.50 for the larger 
volumes, Y5 cents for the smaller ones. 



Vol. I. The Philosophy of Education. By Johann Karl 
Friedrich Rosenkranz. $1.50. 

Vol. II. A History of Education. By Prof. F. V. N. Painter, 

of Roanoke, Virginia. $1.50. 

Vol. III. The Rise and Early Constitution of Univer- 
sities. With a Survey of Mediaeval Education. By S. S. Laurie, 
LL. D., Professor of the Institutes and History of Education in the 
University of Edinburgh. $1.50. 

Vol. IV. The Ventilation and Warming of School 
Buildings. By Gilbert B. Morrison, Teacher of Physics and 
Chemistry in Kansas City High-School. 75 cents. 

Vol. V. The Education Of Man. By Friedrich Froebel. 
Translated from the German and annotated by W. N. Hailmann, 
Superintendent of Public Schools at La Porte, Indiana. $1.50. 

Vol. VI. Elementary Psychology and Education. By 

Joseph Baldwin, Principal of the Sam Houston State Normal 
School, Huntsville, Texas. $1.50. 

Vol. VII. The Senses and the Will. Observations concern- 
ing the Mental Development of the Human Being in the First Years 
of Life. By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Trans- 
lated from the original German, by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the 
State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Part I of The Mind of 
the Child. $1.50. 

Vol. VIII. Memory. What it is and how to improve it. By David 
Kay, F. R. G. S. $1.50. 

Vol. IX. The Development of the Intellect. Observa- 
tions concerning the Mental Development of the Human Being in 
the First Years of Life. By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in 
Jena. Translated from the original German, by H. W. Brown, 
Teacher in the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Part II 
of The Mind of the Child. $1.50. 



INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES 



THE MIND OF THE CHILD 
PAKT II 

THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE INTELLECT 



OBSEB VA TIONS CONCERNING 

THE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BEING 

IN TE% FIBST FEABS OF LIFE 



/BY 

W. PREYER 

PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN JENA 
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN 

Br H. W. BROWN" 

TEACHER IN THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS, 



t> 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETOF AND COMPANY 

1889 



L&ins 
.Pi 



COKTEIGHT, 1889, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



EDITOE'S PEEFACE. 



This second volume contains the further investi- 
gations of Professor Preyer on the mind of the child. 
The former volume contained the first and second por- 
tions, devoted respectively to the development of the 
senses and of the will. The present volume contains 
the third part, treating of the development of the intel- 
lect ; and three appendixes are added containing supple- 
mentary matter. 

Professor Preyer considers that the development of 
the power of using language is the most prominent 
index to the unfolding of the intellect. He differs 
with Professor Max Miiller, however, on the question 
whether the operation of thinking can be carried on 
without the use of words (see the recent elaborate 
work of the latter on u The Science of Thought"). 

At my suggestion, the painstaking translator of this 
book has prepared a full conspectus, showing the re- 
sults of Professor Preyer's careful observations in a 
chronological order, arranged by months. This con- 
siderable labor will render the book more practical, 
inasmuch as it will enable each reader to see at a 
glance the items of development of the child in the 



yi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

several departments brought together in epochs. This 
makes it possible to institute comparative observations 
under the guidance of Professor Prayer's method. I 
think that I do not exaggerate the value of this con- 
spectus when I say that it doubles the value of the 
work to the reader. 

William T. Hareis. 

Co^coed, Mass., November, 1888. 



CONTEE-TS. 



PAGE 

Preface by the Editor v 

Conspectus showing the Progress of the Child by Months . is 

THIRD PART. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. 

CHAPTER 

XVI. — Development of the Child's Intellect independ- 
ent of Language ........ 3 

XVII. — Learning to Speak 33 

1. Disturbances of Speech in Adults . . . .34 

(1) Periphero-Irnpressive or Perceptive Disturb- 
ances, 36. (2) Central Disturbances, 37. (3) Periph- 
ero-Expressive or Articulatory Disturbances, 38. 

2. The Organic Conditions of Learning to Speak . . 42 

3. Parallel between the Disturbances of Speech in 
Adults and the Imperfections of Speech in the Child 45 

I. Lalopathy, 47. A. The Impressive Peripheral 
Processes disturbed — Deafness, 47. B. The Central 
Processes disturbed — Dysphasia, 47. (1) The Sensory 
Processes centrally disturbed, 47. (2) The Sensori- 
motor Processes of Diction disturbed, 48. (3) The 
Motor Processes centrally disturbed, 49. C. The 
Expressive Peripheral Processes disturbed. 54. (1) 
Dyslalia and Alalia, 54. (2) Literal Pararthria or 
Paralalia, 56. (3) Bradylalia, or Bradyarthria, 57. 
II. Dysphasia, 58. III. Dysmimia, 62. 

4. Development of Speech in the Child . . . .64 
XVIII. — First Sounds and Beginnings of Speech in the 

Case of a Child observed daily during his First 
Three Years 99 



Viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. — Development of the Feeling of Self, the " I " - 

Feeling 189 

XX. — Summary of Results 208 

APPENDIXES. 

Appendix A. — Comparative Observations concerning the Ac- 
quirement of Speech, by German and Foreign Children . 221 

(a) Diary of: the Child of the Baroness von Taube, of 
Esthonia, 261. 

Appendix B. — Notes concerning Lacking, Defective, and Ar- 
rested Mental Development in the First Years of Life . . 272 

Appendix C. — Reports concerning the Process of Learning 
to See, on the part of Persons born blind, but acquiring 
Sight through Surgical Treatment, Also some Critical 

Remarks. . 286 

I. The Chesselden Case, 286. II, III. The Ware Cases, 
288. IV, V. The Home Cases, 296. VI. The Wardrop 
Case, 300. VII. The Franz Case, 306. Final Remarks, 312, 



A CONSPECTUS OF 

THE OBSERVATIONS OF PROFESSOR PREYER ON 

THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY BY MONTHS, FOR THE CONVENIENCE OP 

THOSE WHO WISH TO VERIFY THESE OBSERVATIONS, OR TO 

USE THEM AS A GUIDE IN THEIR OWN INVESTIGATIONS. 

By IT. W. BBOWN. 



FIRST MONTH. 

SENSES.* 



Sight. — Light. — Five minutes after birth, slight sensibility to 
light (2). Second day, sensitiveness to light of candle (3). Sixth 
and seventh days, pleasure in moderately bright daylight (3, 4). 
Ninth and tenth days, sensitiveness greater at waking than soon 
afterward (3). Sleeping babes close the eyes more tightly when light 
falls on the eyes (4). Eleventh day, pleasure in light of candle and 
in bright object (3). 

Discrimination of Colors. — Twenty-third day, pleasure in sight 
of rose-colored curtain (6). 

Movements of Eyelids. — First to eleventh day, shutting and 
opening of eyes (22). Irregular movements (23). Lid closed at 
touch of lashes from sixth day on (26). Twenty-fifth day, eyes 
opened and shut when child is spoken to or nodded to (30). 

Pleasure shown by opening eyes wide, displeasure by shutting 
them tightly ; third, sixteenth, and twenty-first days (31). 

Movements of Eyes. — First day, to right and left (35). Tenth 

* Under " Senses " ancl ""Will " the numbers in parentheses indi- 
cate pages in Vol. I. 



x THE MIND OF TEE CHILD. 

day, non-coordinated movements (36). Third week, irregularity 
prevails (37). 

Direction of Look. — Eleventh day, to father's face and to the 
light (43). Upward look (43). Twenty-third day, active looking 
begins (44). Twenty-third and thirtieth days, a moving light fol- 
lowed (44). 

Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Twelfth day, hypermetropia 
(60). 

Hearing. — First days, all children deaf (72). Fourth day, child 
hears noises like clapping of hands (81). Eleventh and twelfth days, 
child quieted by father's voice : hears whistling. Twenty-fifth day, 
pulsation of lids at sound of low voice. Twenty-sixth day, starting 
at noise of dish. Thirtieth day, fright at loud voice (82). 

Feeling. — Sensitiveness to Contact. — At birth (97-105). Second 
and third days, starting at gentle touches. Seventh day, waked by 
touch on face (105). Eleventh day, lid closed at touch of conjunc- 
tiva more slowly than in adults (103). 

Perception of Touch. — First gained in nursing (110). 

Sensibility to Temperature. — At birth, cooling unpleasant. 
Warm bath agreeable. Seventh day, eyes opened wide with pleas- 
ure from bath (112). First two or three years, cold water disagree- 
able (114). Mucous membrane of mouth, tongue, lips, very sensitive 
to cold and warmth (115). 

Taste.— Sensibility.— At birth (116-118). First day, sugar licked 
(118). Second day, milk licked (119). Differences among newly- 
born (120). Sensation not merely general (122). 

Comparison of Impressions. — During nursing period child pre- 
fers sweet taste (123). Second day, child accepts food that on the 
fourth he refuses (124). 

Smell. — Faculty at Birth. — Strong-smelling substances produce 
mimetic movements (130). 

Discrimination. — Eighth day, groping about for nipple (134). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure. — First day, in 
nursing; in the bath ; in the sight of objects ; in the light (141). 

Discomfort. — First days, from cold, wet, hunger, tight clothing, 
etc. (147). 

Hunger. — First days, manifested in sucking movements, crying, 
restlessness (152). Cry differs from that of pain or of satisfaction. 
Other signs of hunger (153). 

Satiety. — Third to fifth week, the nipple pushed away with the 



A CONSPECTUS. x i 

lips : mouth-piece of bottle ditto. Tenth day, smile after eating. 
Fourth week, signs of satisfaction ; laughing, opening and half 
shutting eyes ; inarticulate sounds (157). 

Fatigue. — From crying and nursing (159). Second and third 
weeks, from use of senses (160). First month, sleep lasts two hours ; 
sixteen of the twenty-four hours spent in sleep (162). 

WILL. 

Impulsive Movements.— Outstretching and bending of arms and 
legs just after birth ; contractions, spreading and bending of fingers 
(205). Grimaces (207). Wrinkling of forehead (309). First day, 
arms and legs take same position as before birth (206). Second 
week, stretching of limbs after waking (205). 

Reflex Movements. — In case of light-impressions (34-42). First 
cry (213). Sneezing of newly-born (214). Coughing, ditto. (216). 
Seventh day, yawning (215). First day, spreading of toes when sole 
of foot is touched (224). First day, hiccough (219). First five days, 
choking (218). Wheezing, yawning (215). Seventh day, respiration 
irregular ,(217). Ninth day, clasping (243). Tenth day, lips pro- 
truded (283). Fourteenth day, movement of left hand toward left 
temple (220). Twenty-fourth day, snoring (215). 

Instinctive Movements. — First to third day, hands to face. Fifth 
day, fingers clasp firmly ; toes do not. Sixth day, hands go into 
eye (244). Seventh day, pencil held with toes, but no seizing. 
Ninth day, no clasping by sleeping child (245). Sucking (257-261). 
At end of first week, lateral movements of head (264). Third 
week, clasping with fingers, not with thumb (245). 

Expressive Movements. — Twenty-sixth day, smile of contentment 
(296). Twenty-third day, tears flow (307). Crying, with tears, and 
whimpering, become signs of mental states (308). 

INTELLECT* 

Memory first active in the departments of taste and of smell ; 
then in touch, sight, hearing (5). Comparison of tastes (I, 123). 
Vowel-sounds in first month (67). Sounds in first six months (74). 
Sounds made in crying and screaming, u-ti (101). Twenty-second 
day, association of the breast with nursing (I, 260). 

* Under "Intellect" the numbers in parentheses indicate pages 
from Vol. II, unless otherwise stated. 



x ii THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

SECOND MONTH. 



Sight. — Light. — Bright or highly-colored objects give pleas- 
ure (4). 

Discrimination of Colors. — Forty-second day, pleasure in sight 
of colored tassels (7). 

Movements of Eyelids. — Fifth week, irregular movements of 
lids. Eighth week, lid covering iris (23). Twenty-fifth day, open- 
ing and shutting eyes in surprise (30). Fifty-seventh and fifty- 
eighth days, winking. Sixtieth day, quick opening and shutting 
in fright (26). 

Movements of Eyes. — Thirty-first day, strabismus rare. Forty- 
sixth to fiftieth day, very rare. Fifty-fifth day, irregular move- 
ments rare, but appearing in sleep till the sixtieth day (37). 

Direction of Look. — Fifth week, toward the Christmas-tree (45). 
Thirty-ninth day, toward tassels swinging (46). Seventh week, mov- 
ing lamp or bright object followed (45). 

Hearing. — Fifth week, child does not sleep if persons walk or 
speak. Starting at noises. Sixth week, starting at slight noises 
even in sleep ; quieted by mother's singing. Seventh week, fright 
at noise is greater (83). Sensibility to musical tones, ditto. Eighth 
week, tones of piano give pleasure (84). 

Touch. — Thirty-eighth day, movements caused by touch of water 
(107). Forty-first day, reflex movement of arms caused by a general 
slight agitation (105, 106). Fiftieth and fifty-fifth days, closing of 
eyelid at touch of eyelash (103). Seventh week, upper lip sensitive 
(100). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure in musical sounds 
(141) ; in sight of human face (142). Reflexive laughing (145). Sixth 
week, fretfulness and hunger (155). Eighth week, fatigue after hear- 
ing piano-playing (160). Sleep of three, sometimes of five or six 
hours (162). 

WILL. 

Impulsive Movements. — Of eyes before waking, also twistings and 
raisings of trunk (206). Seventh week, number of respirations 
twenty-eight to the minute (217). 

Reflex Movements,— Of right arm at touch of left temple (220). 
Forty-third day, sneezing caused by witch-meal (215). Fifth week, 
vomiting (219). Eighth week, laughing caused by tickling (225). 



A CONSPECTUS. xiii 

Instinctive Movements. — Seventh week, clasping not yet with 
thumb. Eighth week, the four fingers of the child embrace the 
father's finger (245). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Forty-third day, first consonant ; child says am-ma ; also 
vowel-sound ao. Forty-fourth day, syllables ta-hu ; forty-sixth day, 
go, oro ; fifty-first day, ara ; eighth and ninth weeks, orro, arra. fre- 
quent (102). 

THIRD MONTH. 



Sight. — Movements of the Eyelids. — Eyelid not completely 
raised when child looked up (23). Irregular movements of eyes 
appear (though rare) up to tenth week; at three months are no 
more observed (37). 

Direction of Look. — Sixty-first day, child looked at his mother 
and gave a cry of joy ; the father's face made the child gay. Sixty- 
second day, look directed at a swinging lamp (46). 

Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Ninth week, accommodation 
apparent (54). 

Hearing. — Ninth week, sound of watch arouses attention ; other 
noises (84). Eleventh week, head moved in direction of sound (85). 
Eighty-first day ditto. (47). Twelfth week, sudden turning of head 
toward sounding body (85). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure. — Smile at sight 
of the mother's face (145). 

Unpleasant Peeling. — From some internal cause (151). 

Fatigue. — Sucking tiresome (159). Sleep of four or five hours 
without waking (162). 

Hunger. — Tenth week, child hungry three times or more in a 
night (155). 

WILL. 

Reflex Movements. — Respirations, thirteenth week, twenty-seven 
to the minute (217). Hiccough frequent ; stopped by use of sweet- 
ened water (219). 

Instinctive Movements. — Eleventh week, pencil held, but mechan- 
ically; thumb not used in clasping (245). Twelfth week, eighty- 
fourth day, contra-position of thumb reflexive (245, 246). Thirteenth 
week, thumb follows fingers more readily (246). Eleventh week, 
head balanced occasionally. Twelfth week, some gain in holding 



x iv THE MIND OF THE CHILD, 

head. Thirteenth week, head tolerably well balanced (264). Seiz- 
ing merely apparent (246). No voluntary movement (266). 

INTELLECT. 

Eighty-first day, seeking direction of sound (I, 47). 

Speech. — Consonant m frequent (67). Sixty-fourth day, ma (102). 
Sixty-fifth day, nei nei nei and once a-omb. Sixty-sixth day, la, 
grei, aho, ma. Sixty-ninth day, momm and ngo. Seventy-first day, 
ra-a-ao. Seventy-sixth day, na and nai-n. Seventy-eighth day, habu. 
Twelfth week, a-i and uao, d-o-a, a-a-a and o-a-6 (103). 

Feeling of Self. — Eleventh week, child does not see himself in 
mirror (197). 

FOURTH MONTH. 



Sight. — Movements of Eyelids. — Ninety-eighth day, brow wrin- 
kled when look is upward (24). Fifty-seventh day, winking (26). 
Fifteenth and sixteenth weeks, ditto (27). Seventeenth week, objects 
seized are moved toward eyes ; grasping at objects too distant (55). 

Movements of Eyes. — No more non-coordinated (37). 

Direction of Look. — Fourteenth week, following person moving. 
One hundred and first day, following pendulum. Sixteenth week, 
gazing at sides and ceiling of carriage and at objects (48). 

Hearing. — Sixteenth week, head turned toward sound with cer- 
tainty of reflex (85). 

Feeling. — Seventeenth week, eyes are closed when a drop of 
water touches lashes (103). Fourteenth week, sleeping child throws 
up arms at sudden touch (106). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure in grasping at 
objects (142). Fifteenth week, intervals between meals three or four 
hours (155). Sleep lasts five or six hours (162). Twenty-second 
week, astonishment at seeing father after separation (173). Four- 
teenth week, smile of satiety. Seventeenth week, joy in seeing 
image in mirror (297). 

WILL. 

Reflex Movements. — Fourteenth week, right hand to right eye 
(220). 

Instinctive Movements. — Fourteenth week, hands hold objects 
longer and with contra-position of thumb. Fifteenth and sixteenth 



A CONSPECTUS. XV 

weeks, no intentional seizing. One hundred and fourteenth day, ditto 
(246). Seventeenth week, efforts to take hold of ball ; ball moved 
to mouth and eyes. One hundred and eighteenth day, frequent at- 
tempts at seizing; following day, grasping gives pleasure (247). 
Fourteenth week, head seldom falls forward. Sixteenth week, head 
held up permanently (264), this the first distinct manifestation of 
will (265). Fourteenth week, child sits, his back supported (267). 
Seventeenth week, biting (261). 

Imitative Movements. — Fifteenth week, beginnings of imitation ; 
trying to purse the lips (283). Seventeenth week, protruding tip ot 
tongue (284). 

Expressive Movements. — Sixteenth week, turnings of head and 
nodding, not significant ; head turned away in refusal (314). 

Deliberate Jfbwmewfe.— Fourteenth week, attentive looking at 
person moving ; one hundred and first day, at pendulum swinging 
(48). Fifteenth week, imitation, pursing lips (283). Sixteenth and 
seventeenth weeks, voluntary gazing at image in mirror (343). 

INTELLECT. 

Intellect participates in voluntary movements (I, 338). 

Speech. — Fourteenth week, nto, lia, Id, na. Fifteenth week, nan- 
nana, nd-na, nanna, in refusal (103). Sixteenth week, in screaming, 
d-u d-u d, Bj-u d-u, u-d u-d, u-u-d-6, amme-a ; in discomfort, ud-ud- 
■ud-ud (104). 

Feeling of Self. — Seventeenth week, child gazes at his own hand 
(193). One hundred and thirteenth day, for the first time regards his 
image with attention (197). One hundred and sixteenth day, laughs 
at his image (198). 

FIFTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Direction of Looh — Looking inquiringly (48). 

Seeing Wear and Distant Objects. — Reaching too short (55). 

Hearing. — Nineteenth week, pleasure in sound of crumpling 
of paper by himself. Twenty-first week, beating of gong enchains 
attention (85). Disturbed by noise (86). 

Touch. — Auditory canal sensitive (106). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure in crumpling 
paper, tearing newspapers and rolling them into balls, pulling at 
glove or hair, ringing of a bell (142, 143). Eighteenth week, dis- 



xvi THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

comfort shown by depressing angles of mouth (149). Eighteenth 
week, nights of ten to eleven hours without taking food (155). 
Eighteenth week, desire shown by stretching out arms (247). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Eighteenth week, objects seized are held 
firmly and carried to the mouth (247).' Nineteenth week, child takes 
bit of meat and carries to mouth. One hundred and twenty-third 
day, lips protruded in connection with seizing (248). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Consonant k, go, k'6, aggeggeko. First five months, 
screaming sounds u, a, o, a, with u and o ; m almost the only con- 
sonant (104). 

Feeling of Self. — Discovery by child that he can cause sensations 
of sound (192). Looking at his own fingers very attentively (194). 

SIXTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Movements of Eyelids. — Twenty-fifth week, winking 
caused by puff of wind in face (27). 

Interpretation of what is seen.— Child laughs when nodded to 
by father ; observes father's image in mirror, etc. (62). 

Taste. — Medicine taken if sweetened (124). One hundred and 
fifty-sixth day, child refuses breast, having had sweeter milk. End 
of twenty-third week, milk of new nurse taken, also cow's milk, meat- 
broth (125). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure in grasping in- 
creases (142). Arms moved up and down when child is nodded to 
(144). Twenty-third week, depression of angles of mouth and cry 
of distress caused by harsh address (149). Hunger apparent in per- 
sistent gaze at bottle, crying, and opening of mouth (154). Sleep of 
six to eight hours (162). Astonishment at seeing father after sepa- 
ration, and at sight of stranger (173). 



Reflex Movements. — Sneezing caused, on one hundred and seven- 
tieth day, by blowing on the child (215). 

Instinctive Movements. — Twenty-second week, child raised him- 



A CONSPECTUS. XVli 

self to sitting posture (267). Twenty-third week, ditto : pleased at 
being placed upright (275). 

Expressive Movements. — Laugh accompanied by raisings and 
droppings of arms when pleasure, is great (299). Arm-movements 
that seemed like defensive movements (314). " Crowing " a sign of 
pleasure (II, 104). 

INTELLECT. 

Use of means to cause flow of milk (12). 

Speech. — Twenty-second week, bgo, ma-o-e, ha, a, ho-ich. " Crow- 
ing " and aspirate ha, and brrr-hd, signs of pleasure (104). So aja, 
brrgb, a-d-i-6-a, eu and oeu (French) and a and b (German), also ija ; 
i and u rare (105). 

Feeling of Self. — Twenty-third week, discrimination between 
touch of self and of foreign object (194; I, 109). Twenty-fourth 
week, child gazes at glove and at his fingers alternately (194). 
Twenty fourth week, sees father's image in mirror and turns to look 
at father. Twenty-fifth week, stretches hand toward his own image. 
Twenty-sixth week, sees image of father and compares it with origi- 
nal (198). 

SEVENTH MONTH. 



Sight. — Movements of Eyelids. — End of seventh month, opening 
and shutting of fan causes opening and shutting of eyes (30). 

Direction of Look. — Twenty-ninth week, looking at flying spar- 
row (48). Thirtieth week, child does not look after objects let 
fall (49). 

Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Accommodation is perfect 
(55). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Staring at strange face (62). 

Hearing. — Gaze at person singing ; joy in military music (86), 

Feeling. — Child became pale in bath (115)'. 

Taste. — New tastes cause play of countenance (124). One hun- 
dred and eighty-fifth day, cow's milk boiled, with egg, is liked ; legu- 
minous food not (125). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Pleasure in his image in 
mirror (142). Child laughs when others laugh to him (145). Twenty- 
ninth week, crying with hunger ; spreading out tongue (153). Sa- 
tiety shown by thrusting mouth-piece out (157). 



xviii THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 



Impulsive Movements. — Nose becomes mobile. Babes strike 
about them vigorously (207). 

Reflex Movements. — Sighing appears (216). 

Instinctive Movements. — Thirtieth week, seizing more perfect 
(249). Child places himself upright on lap, twenty-eighth week (275). 

Imitative Movements. — Imitation of movements of head ; of purs- 
ing lips (283). 

Expressive Movements. — Averting head as sign of refusal ; thrust- 
ing nipple out of mouth (313, 314). Astonishment shown by open 
mouth and eyes (55). 

INTELLECT. 

Child did not recognize nurse after absence of four weeks (7) ; 
but children distinguish faces before thirtieth week (6). 

Speech. — When hungry, child screams ma, a, ua, ude; when 
contented, says orr'6 ; la, u-d-u-i-i ; t seldom, 7c only in yawning, p 
very rarely (106). 

EIGHTH MONTH. 



Sight. — Movements of Eyelids. — Brow not wrinkled invariably 
in looking upward (24). Play of lid on hearing new noises ; no lift- 
ing of eyebrows (30, 31). Thirty-fourth week, eyes opened wide 
with longing (31). 

Direction of Look. — Thirty-first week, gaze turned in direction 
of falling object. Thirty-third week, objects moved slowly down- 
ward are followed with close gaze. Thirty-fourth week, objects let 
fall by him are seldom looked after (49). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Interest in bottles (62). 

Hearing. — Quick closing of lids at new impressions of sound 
(86). 

Taste. — Pleasure in the " prepared food " (125). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Discomfort accompanied 
by square form of the mouth (149). Craving for food shown by 
cooing sound (155). Strongest feeling connected with appeasing of 
hunger (157). Eestless nights (162). Astonishment at new sounds 
and sights ; with fright (86). Thirty-first week, at clapping of fan. 
Thirty-fourth week, at imitation of voices of animals (173). 



A CONSPECTUS. X \ K 



Impulsive Movements. — Accompanying movement of hand (210). * 
Thirty-fourth week, stretchings of arms and legs accompanying 
utterance (II, 108). ' 

Instinctive Movements. — Thirty-second week, seizing with both 
hands more perfect ; attention more active (248). In same week, 
legs stretched up vertically, feet observed attentively, toes carried 
to mouth with the hands (249). Pulling objects to him ; grasping 
at bottle (250). Thirty-fourth week, carrying things to mouth 
(251). 

Expressive Movements. — Laugh begins to be persistently loud 
(299). Thirty-second week, child no longer sucks at lips when he is 
kissed, but licks them (305). Eyelid half closed in disinclination 
(315). Interest in objects shown by stretching out hands (321). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Variety of sounds made in the first eight months at 
random (76). Concept of bottle before language (79). Sounds in 
screaming different (106). Once the sound ha-upp; frequently 
a-ei, a-au, a-hau-a, horro. Also nte-6, mi-ja mija; once ouaei (107).. 

Feeling of Self. — Thirty-second week, child looks at his legs 
and feet as if they were foreign to him (194). 



NINTH MONTH. 



Sight. — Movements of Eyes. — Eyes converged easily (38). 

Direction of Look. — Thirty-sixth week, objects that fall are not 
regularly looked after, but slowly moving objects, e. g., tobacco- 
smoke, are followed (49). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Boxes are gazed at (62). More 
interest shown in things in general (63). 

Hearing. — Winking and starting at slamming noise (86). 

Taste. — Yolk of egg with cane-sugar taken with expression of 
surprise. Water and bread liked (126). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Striking hands together 
and laughing for joy (145). Eyes shut when something disagreeable 
is to be endured ; head turned away also (148). Cooing, as in eighth 
month (155). Fear of dog (167, 168). 



xx THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 



Reflex Movements.— Number of respirations (in fever) forty and 
forty-two in a minute (217). 

Instinctive Movements.— Teeth-grinding (262). Turning over 
when laid face downward (266). Thirty-fifth week, child places 
himself on arm and hand of nurse, and looks over her shoulder (275). 
Thirty-ninth week, likes to sit with support (267). Thirty-ninth 
week,* stands on feet a moment without support (269). 

Expressive Moveme?its.—hou& laughing at new, pleasing objects 
(299). Tarns head to light when asked where it is (321). 

Deliberate Movements.— Things brought to mouth are put 
quickly on tongue (329). 

INTELLECT. 

Question understood before child can speak (I, 321). 

Speech. — Voice more modulated : screaming varies with different 
causes (107). Delight shown by crowing sounds: ma-ma, ammti, 
ma, are expressions of pleasure ; d-au-d-d, d-d, a-u-au, na-na ; apa, 
ga-au-d, acha (108). 

Feeling op Self. — Feet are felt of, and toes are carried to mouth 
(190). Thirty-fifth week, foot grasped and carried to mouth. Thirty- 
sixth week, other objects preferred to hands and feet. Thirty-ninth 
week, in the bath his own skin is looked at and felt of, also his legs 
(194). Thirty-fifth week, his image in mirror is grasped at gayly 
(198). 

TENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Movements of Eyelids. — Brow invariably wrinkled at 
looking upward (24). 

Movements of Eyes. — Convergence of lines of vision disturbed 
(38). 

Direction of LooTc.— Forty-third week, objects thrown down are 
looked at (49). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Visual impressions connected 
with food best interpreted (63). 

Hearing. — Head turned at noise (87). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Joy at lighting of lamp 
(145). 



A CONSPECTUS. X xi 



Reflex Movements, — Inhibition of reflex (229). 

Instinctive Movements. — Forty-third week, carrying objects to 
mouth (252). Taking a hair from one hand into the other (253). 
Finger bitten (2G1). Bread crunched and swallowed (262). Turning 
over when laid on face (266). Fortieth and forty-first weeks, trying 
to sit without support (267). Forty-second week, sitting up without 
support in bath and carriage (267, 268). Forty-first week, first at- 
tempts at walking (275). Forty-second week, moving feet forward 
and sidewise; inclination to walk. Forty-third week, foot lifted 
high ; moving forward (276). 

Imitative Movements. — Beckoning imitated (285). 

Expressive Movements. — Laughing becomes more conscious and 
intelligent (299). Crying in sleep (308). Striking hands together in 
sleep (319). Object pointed at is carried to mouth and chewed (322). 
Body straightened in anger (324). This not intentional (326). 

INTELLECT. 

Forty-third week, knowledge of weight of bodies (1, 50). A child 
missed his parents when they were absent, also a single nine-pin of a 
set (7, 8). 

Speech. — Child can not repeat a syllable heard (77). In mono- 
logue, syllables are more distinct, loud, and varied when child is left 
to himself than when other persons entertain him : ndde, bde-bde, 
ba ell, arro. Frequent are ma, pappa, tatta, wppapa, babba, tdtd, 
pa, rrrr, rrra. Hints at imitation (108). 

Feeling of Self. — Forty-first week, striking his own body and 
foreign objects (191). Forty-first to forty-fourth week, image in 
mirror laughed at and grasped at (198). 

ELEVENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Direction of Look. — Forty-seventh week, child throws 
down objects and looks after them (49). 

Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Forty-fourth week, new ob- 
jects no longer carried to eyes, but gazed at and felt. Forty-seventh 
week, accommodation perfect (55). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Trying to fixate objects (63). 

Hearing. — Screaming is quieted by a " Sh ! " or by singing. 



Xxii TILE M1XD OF THE CHILD. 

Three hundred and nineteenth day, difference in sound of spoon on 
plate when plate was touched by hand (87). 

Taste. — Meat-broth with egg taken ; scalded skimmed milk re- 
jected ; dry biscuit liked (126). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Forty-fourth week, aston- 
ishment at strange face (173). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Forty-fifth week, grasping at flame of 
lamp ; forty-seventh, at objects behind a pane of glass ; gain in 
moving muscles of arm ; shreds of paper handled (252). Biting fa- 
ther's hand (261). Smacking lips (262). Sitting becomes habit for 
life (268). Standing without support ; stamping ; but standing only 
for a moment (269). End of forty-seventh week, feet well placed, 
but lifted too high and put down too hard (276). 

Expressive Movements. — Grasping at his image with laugh ; jubi- 
lant noise at being allowed to walk (299). 

Deliberate Movements. — Striking spoon against object and ex- 
changing objects (326, 327). Child takes biscuit, carries it to mouth, 
bites off a bit, chews and swallows it ; but can not drink from glass 
(329). 

INTELLECT. 

Syllables correctly repeated ; intentional sound-imitation on the 
three hundred and twenty-ninth day. Forty-fifth week, response 
made for diversion : whispering begins (109). Three kinds of 
r-sounds : new syllables, ta-hee, dann-tee, aa-nee, nga, tai, ha, drill, 
at-tall, kamm, rifckee, pra'i-jer, tra, a-hee. Some earlier sounds fre- 
quent ; consonants b, p, t, d, m, n, r ; I, g, fc : vowel a most used, u 
and o rare, i very rare (110), Accentuation not frequent (111). As- 
sociation of idea with utterance in one case (111, 122). Forty-fifth 
week, to word " papa," response rrra (113). 

Feeling of Self.— Forty-fifth to fifty-fifth week, discoveiy of his 
power to cause changes (192). 

TWELFTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Fifty-first week, 
pleasure in seeing men sawing wood at distance of more than one 
hundred feet (55). 

Hearing.— Screaming quieted by " Sh ! " (87). Three hundred 



A CONSPECTUS. xxiii 

and sixty-third day, hears noise in next room and looks in direction 
of sound (88). 

Taste. — Fastidious about food (126). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Grunting as indication of 
pleasure (144). Fifty-second week, astonishment at new sound (173). 

WILL. 

Impulsive Mo vements.— Accompanying movement of hand in 
drinking (209). 

Instinctive Movements. — Child seized father's hand, carried it to 
mouth and bit it (261). Forty-eighth week, standing without sup- 
port a moment; stamping; pushing a chair (276). Forty-ninth 
week, child can not raise himself without help or stand more than 
an instant. Fiftieth week, can not place himself on his feet, or walk 
without help (277). 

Imitative Movements. — Trying to strike with spoon on tumbler ; 
puffing repeated in sleep (287). 

Expressive Movements. — End of year, imitative laughing ; crow- 
ing (299). Laughing in sleep (300). Opening of mouth in kissing 
(305). Arms stretched out in desire (322). 

Deliberate Movements. — Biscuit put into mouth with few failures ; 
drinking from glass, breathing into the water (329). 

intellect. 

Ideas gained before language (78). Logical activity applied to 
perceptions of sound (I, 88). Abstraction, whiteness of milk (18). 

Speech. — Imitation more successful, but seldom correct. Ar- 
tiaulate sounds made spontaneously : liaja, jajajajaja, aja, njaja, 
nam-hopp, ha-a,pa-a, dewdr, han-na, momma, allda, alldal, apa-u-a, 
gaga, ha, ladn ; atta is varied, no more dada ; iv for the first time. 
Ability to discriminate between words (112). Fifty-second week, 
child of himself obeys command, " Give the hand ! " Quieting effect 
of sounds " sh, ss, st, pst " (113). 

Feeling of Self. — Striking hard substances against teeth ; gnash- 
ing teeth (189). Tearing of paper continued (192). 

THIRTEENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Hearing.— Child strikes on keys of piano ; pleased with singing 
of canary-bird (89). 



xxiv THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Laughing almost invari- 
ably follows the laugh of others (145). Sleep, fourteen hours daily 
(162). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Standing some moments without sup- 
port (270). Fifty-third week, creeping. Fifty-fourth week, walking, 
with support ; movements in creeping asymmetrical (277). 

Expressive Movements. — No idea of kissing (305). Shaking head 
in denial (315). Begging sound along with extending of hands 
in desire (323). 

INTELLECT. 

Trying door after shutting it (15, 16). Hears the vowel-sounds 
in word (68). 

Speech. — Desire expressed by cl-na, d-nananana (112). Awkward- 
ness continues ; attention more lively. Tries to repeat words said 
for him. Three hundred and sixty-ninth day, papa repeated cor- 
rectly (113, 114). Syllables most frequent, nja, njan, dada, atta, 
mama, papal, atta'i, na-na-na, hatta, meene-meene-meene, momm, 
momma, ao-u : na-na denotes desire, mama, mother. Fifty-fourth 
week, joy expressed by crowing, some very high tones ; first dis- 
tinct s, three hundred and sixty-eighth day (114). Understanding 
of words spoken (115). Confusion of associations ; first conscious 
act of obedience (116). 

Feeling of Self. — Rapping head with hand (191). Finding him- 
self a cause: shaking keys, etc. (192). Fifty-fifth week, strikes 
himself and observes his hands ; compares fingers of others with 
his own (195). 

FOURTEENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Fifty-eighth week, 
grasping at lamp above him (55). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Fear of falling (169). Fifty 
eighth week, astonishment at lantern (173). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Child could be allowed to bite paper to 
pieces ; he took the pieces out of his mouth (253). Fifty-seventh 
week, he hitches along on hands and knees ; can not walk without 
support. Sixtieth week, raises himself by chair (277). 



A CONSPECTUS. xxv 



val of time was required (287). Coughing imitated (288). Nodding 
not imitated (315). 

Expressive Movements. — Confounding of movements (322). Af- 
fection shown by laying hand on face and shoulders of others (324). 

Deliberate Movements. — Child takes off and puts on the cover 
of a can seventy-nine times (328). 

INTELLECT. 

Wrong understanding of what is heard (89). 

Speech. — No doubt that atta means " going " ; orrr, practiced and 
perfected ; daJcJcn, daggn, taggn, attagn, attain ; no special success in 
repeating vowels and syllables (117). Child tries and laughs at his 
failures, if others laugh ; parrot-like repetition of some syllables 
(118). Gain in understanding of words heard ; association of defi- 
nite object with name (119). More movements executed on hear- 
ing words (120). Confounding of movements occurs, but grows 
rare; begging attitude seen to be useful (121). 

Feeling of Self. — Four hundred and ninth day, child bit himself 
on the arm (189). Pulling out and pushing in a drawer, turning 
leaves of book, etc. (192). Fifty-seventh week, child looks at his 
image in hand-mirror, puts hand behind glass, etc. (198). Fifty- 
eighth week, his photograph treated in like manner ; he turns away 
from his image in mirror ; sixtieth week, recognizes his mother's 
image in mirror as image (199). 



FIFTEENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Direction of Look. — Sixty-third to sixty-fifth week, ob- 
jects thrown down and looked after (50). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Grasps at candle, puts hand into 
flame, but once only (63). 

Hearing. — Laughing at new noises, as gurgling or thunder (89). 

Smell. — Coffee and cologne make no impression till end of 
month (134). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Sixty-second week, child stands a few 
seconds when support is withdrawn. Sixty-third week, walks, hold- 



xxv i THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ing on to a support (277). Sixty-fourth week, can walk without 
support, if he thinks he is supported ; sixty-fifth week, walks hold- 
ing by one finger of another's hand ; raises himself to knees, stands 
up if he can hold to something (278). 

Imitative Movements. — Coughing. Learns to blow out candle 
(288). Opening and shutting of hand (289). 

Expressive Movements. — Laughing at new sounds (299). The 
words " Give a kiss " produce a drawing near of head and protruding 
of lips (306). Wrinkling of brow in attempts at imitation (310). 
Deprecating movement of arm (314). Sixty-fourth week, nodding 
sometimes accompanies the word " no " ; four hundred and forty-fifth 
day, an accompanying movement (316). First shrugging of shoul- 
ders (317). Begging gesture made by child when he wants some- 
thing (318). Same made in asking for amusement (319). Wish ex- 
pressed by handing a ring, looking at glasses to be struck, and say- 
ing hay-uh (323). 

INTELLECT. 

Hunting for scraps of paper, etc. (17). After burning his finger 
in flame of candle, the child never put it near the flame again, but 
would, in fun, put it in the direction of the candle. He allowed 
mouth and chin to be wiped without crying (20). 

Speech. — New sound wa ; astonishment expressed by ha-a-w-e, 
j°y by crowing in high and prolonged tones, strong desire by had, 
hd-e, pain, impatience, by screaming in vowels passing over into one 
another (121). The atta still used when a light is dimmed (122). 
Advance in repeating syllables. Child is vexed when he can not re- 
peat a word. One new word, heiss (hot) (123). The s is distinct ; 
th (Eng.) appears; w; smacking in sixty-fifth week; tongue the 
favorite plaything (124). Understands words "moon," "clock," 
" eye," " nose," " cough," " blow," " kick," " light " ; affirmative nod 
at "ja" in sixty-fourth week ; negative shaking at "no"; holding 
out hand at words " Give the hand " or " hand " ; more time re- 
quired when child is not well (125). 

Feeling of Self. — Child bit his finger so that he cried out with 
pain (191). Sixty-second week, playing with his fingers as foreign 
objects ; pressing one hand down with the other (195). Sixty-first 
week, trying to feel of his own image in the mirror (199). 



A CONSPECTUS. XXvii 

SIXTEENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Sixty-eighth week, 
reaching too short, too far to left or right, too high or too low (56), 

Interpretation of ivhat is seen. — Grasping at jets of water (63). 

Hearing. — Child holds watch to his ear and listens to the tick- 
ing (89). 

Smell. — Smell and taste not separated ; a flower is taken into 
mouth (135). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions.— Fear of high tones (169). 

WILL. 

Impulsive Movements.— Sleeping child raised hand to eye (202). 
Accompanying movement of fingers in drinking (210). 

Reflex Movements. — Respirations, in sleep, twenty-two to twenty- 
five a minute (217). 

Instinctive Movements. — Sixty-sixth week, four hundred and fifty- 
seventh day, child runs alone (278). Next day, stops and stamps. 
Four hundred and sixty-first day, can walk backward, if led, and can 
turn round alone. At the end of the week can look at objects while 
walking. Sixty-seventh week, a fall occurs rarely. Sixty-eighth 
week, walking becoming mechanical (279). 

Imitative Movements. — A ring put on his head in imitation (289). 
Waiting attitude (318). 

Expressive Movements. — Lips protruded almost like a snout (302). 
Shaking head meant ' ; No" and "I do not know" (316). Child 
shrugs shoulders when unable to answer (317). Waiting attitude 
becomes a sign (318). 

Deliberate Movements. — Opening and shutting cupboards, bring- 
ing objects, etc. Holding ear-ring to ear (327). 

intellect. 

Child holds an ear-ring to his ear with understanding (I, 327). 
A begging movement at seeing box from which cake had come (11). 
Small understanding shown in grasping at ring (13). 

Speech. — Progress in repeating words spoken for him and in un- 
derstanding words heard. Desire expressed by lid! lid-'o I lia-e! 
Jie-e ! More seldom hi, go-go, go, f-pa, cm; more frequently, ta, 
dohkn, ta-lia, a-bwa-bwa, bud-bud; once dagon. Child "reads" the 
newspaper (126). Pain expressed by screaming; joy by crowing 



xxviii THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

with vowel i; a repeated on command; mo and ma; imitation 
tried (127). Touches eye, ear, etc., when these are named — not with 
certainty (128). Understands " bring," " give," etc. (129). 

Feeling of Self. — Putting thumbs against the head and pushing, 
experimenting (191). Sixty-sixth week, child strikes at his image in 
mirror. Sixty-seventh week, makes grimaces before mirror ; turns 
round to see his father, whose image appeared in mirror (199). 
Sixty-ninth week, signs of vanity (200). 

SEVENTEENTH MONTH. 



Sight. — Interpretation of wliat is seen. — Child grasps at tobac- 
co-smoke (64). 

Hearing. — Holding watch to ear (89). 

Taste. — Surprise at new tastes (119). 

Smell. — Inability to separate smell and taste (135). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Prolonged sleep ; ten hours 
at a time (162). 

WILL. 

Reflex Movements. — Right hand moved when right nostril is 
touched (221). 

Instinctive Movements. — Clasping of finger in sleep (243). Seven- 
tieth week, child raises himself from floor alone : seventy- first week, 
steps over threshold (279). 

Expressive Movements. — Shaking head means " I do not wish " 
(316). Throwing himself on floor and screaming with rage (323). 

INTELLECT. 

Child brings traveling-bag to stand upon in order to reach (12). 
Play of "hide and seek" (17). 

Speech. — Screaming, whimpering, etc. (101). Increase of dis- 
crimination : bibi, nd-na-na, t-to, Tiot-tb ; voluntary imitation (129). 
Associations of words heard with objects and movements (130). 

Feeling of Self. — Making grimaces before mirror (200). 

EIGHTEENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Direction of Look. — Seventy-eighth week, throwing away 
of playthings is rare (50). 



A CONSPECTUS. xx i x 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Anxiety on seeing man dressed 
in black (64). 

Smell. — Objects no longer carried to mouth (135). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Laughing at thunder (170). 

WILL. 

Impulsive Movements. — Holding little finger apart from others 
(209). 

Instinctive Movements. — Walks over threshold by holding on 
(275). Seventy-seventh week, runs around table; seventy-eighth, 
walks over threshold without holding on (280). 

Imitative Movements. — Blowing horn (290). 

Expressive Movements. — Trying to hit With foot, striking, etc. 
(315). Waiting attitude (318). 

Deliberate Movements. — Full spoon carried to mouth with skill 
(329). 

INTELLECT. 

Memory of towel (8). Watering flowers with empty pot (16). 
Plays (17). Giving leaves to stag, etc. (18). Stick of wood put in 
stove (20). 

Speech.— Understanding of words increases (130). Repeating of 
syllables is rare ; atta becomes tto, t-tu, ftu ; feeling recognized by 
tone of voice (131). 

Feeling of Self.— Recognition of himself as cause of changes 
(192). 

NINETEENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Hearing.— Hearing watch on his head (89). 
Organic Sensations and Emotions.— Fear of strangers ceases 
(150). Laugh at thunder and lightning (170). 

WILL. 

Imitative Movements. — Combing and brushing hair, washing 
hands, etc. (290). 

Expressive Movements.— Fastidious about kissing (306). Pride 
in baby-carriage (324). 

Deliberative Movements.— Spoon taken in left hand (329). 



xxx THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

INTELLECT. 

Father recognized after absence (8). Bringing cloth for wrap 
and begging for door to be opened (12). Grunting in order to be 
taken away (13). Induction, watch and clock (18). Crying seen to 
be useless (20). 

Speech. — Imitation of whistle (91). Spontaneous sound imita- 
tions more frequent (131). Gazing after objects thrown and whis- 
pering, reading newspaper (132). Response to pa correctly given 
(133). Objects correctly pointed out ; memory of tricks (134). 

Feeling of Self. — Attempt to give his foot (190). 



TWENTIETH MONTH. 



Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — First color-tests. Eighty- 
fifth week, no discrimination (7). Eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh 
weeks, no results (8). 

Movements of the Eyes. — Readiness of convergence, pupils very 
wide open (38). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Prolonged sleep habitual, 
etc. (163). 

WILL. 

Reflex Movements. — Respirations twenty-two and more (217). 

Instinctive Movements. — Eighty-fifth week, thresholds stepped 
over quickly ; inclines forward in running (280). 

Imitative Movements. — Use of comb and brush, putting on col- 
lar (290). Scraping feet, putting pencil to mouth, marking on 
paper (291). 

Expressive Movements. — Proximity essential in kissing ; bends 
head when " kiss " is said (306). Antipathy expressed by turning 
head at approach of women in black (315). 

Deliberate Movements. — Carries spoon with food to mouth cleverly 
(329). 

INTELLECT. 

As in nineteenth month, grunting (12, 13). 

Speech. — Rodi, otto, rojo (93). Understanding of the word 
" other " (128, 129). Five hundred and eighty-fourth day, impor- 
tant advance in repeating words said (135). Imagination ; can not 



A CONSPECTUS. xxxi 

repeat three syllables; laughs when others laugh (136). Single 
words more promptly understood (137). One new concept, expressed 
by da and nda, or ta and nta. Eighty-seventh week, attah said on 
railway-train ; papa and bat or bit (for " bitte ") rightly used ; much 
outcry (138). Crowing tones not so high; loud readings continued 
(139), 

TWENTY-FIRST MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Hearing. — Dancing not rhythmical (89, 90). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions.— Fear of the sea (170). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Eighty-ninth week, running is awk- 
ward, but falling rare (280). 

Imitative Movements. — Imitation without understanding (290, 
291). 

Expressive Movements. — Ninetieth week, pointing as expression 
of wish (321). 

INTELLECT. 

Recognition of father (8). Association of biscuit with coat and 
wardrobe (11). 

Speech. — Imitations more frequent. Eighty-ninth week, bab- 
bling different, more consonants ; pto-pto, pt-pt, and verlapp, also 
dla-dla ; willfulness shown in articulate sounds and shaking head 
(139). Unlike syllables not repeated, dang~gee and daiik-kee ; tend- 
ency to doubling syllables, tete, bibi; babbling yields great pleas- 
ure ; bibi for " bitte " rightly used. New word mimi, when hungry 
or thirsty (140). Understands use and signification of sound, 
neinein ; and answers of his own accord jaja to question in ninety- 
first week. Strength of memory for sounds; points correctly to 
nose, mouth, etc. (141). Astonishing progress in understanding 
what is said. Few expressions of his own with recognizable mean- 
ing, jae excepted. Att, att, att, unintelligible. Tried to imitate 
sound of steam of locomotive (142). 

Feeling of Self. — Placing shells and buttons in rows (193). Puts 
lace about him ; vanity ; laughs and points at his own image in mir- 
ror (200). The same on six hundred and twentieth day (201). 
3 



xxxii THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

TWENTY-SECOND MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — New impressions enchain attention ; the mysterious more 
attractive (64). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. Progress in understanding ; orders executed with sur- 
prising accuracy (142). Strength of word-memory ; facility of ar- 
ticulation ; spontaneous utterance of pss, ps, ptsch, pth ; pa-ptl-dd- 
pt ; greeting with hda-o, ada and ana. Singing, rollo, mama, md?nd, 
etc. More certainty in reproducing sounds : " pst, anna, otto, lina," 
etc. Three-syllabled words correctly repeated, a-ma-ma, a-pa-pa 
(143). Words too hard are given back with tapeta, peta, pta, pto-pto 
or rateratetat. Jaja and nein nein, with da and bibi and mimi, used 
properly in request. Cry of pain a strong contrast with the crow- 
ing for joy (144). 

TWENTY-THIRD MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — Ninety-sixth week, 
does not appreciate distance (56). 

WILL. 

Imitative Movements. — Imitative impulse seems like ambition; 
ceremonious movements imitated (291). 

Expressive Movements. — Kiss given as a mark of favor (306). 
Striking hands together in applause and desire for repetition (319). 
Tears of sorrow instead of anger ; tries to move chair to table, etc. 
(324). 

INTELLECT. 

Joy at seeing playthings after absence of eleven and a half 
weeks (8). Concept of " cup" not sharply denned (16). Use of ad- 
jective for the first spoken judgment (96). 

Speech. — Heiss (hot) means "The drink is too hot," and "the 
stove is hot " (144). Watja and mimi ; mimmi, mdm'd, mama, mean 
food ; atta, disappearance ; spontaneous articulation, ol, eu, ana, ida, 
didl, dadl, dldo-dlda; in singing-tone, opoj'o, apojopojum aui,heissa; 
calls grandparents e-papa and e-mama ; knows who is meant when 
these are spoken of. Understands words more easily, as " drink, eat, 
shut, open " (145). Word-memory becoming firm ; imagination. 



A CONSPECTUS. xxxiii 

Great progress in reproducing syllables and words (146). Child's 
name, " Axel," is called Aje, Eja. " Bett, Karre, Kuk," repeated 
correctly. Echolalia reappears (147). Words are best pronounced 
by child when he is not called upon to do it (148). 

Feeling of Self.— Child holds biscuit to his toes (190). 

TWENTY-FOURTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Interpretation of ivhat is seen. — Moving animals closely 
observed (64). 

Hearing. — Trying to sing, and beating time (90). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Astonishment more seldom 
apparent (174). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Child turns, of himself, dancing in time 
to music ; beats time (280). 

Imitative Movements. — Ceremonious movements imitated, saluta- 
tion, uncovering head (291). 

Expressive Movements.— Roguish laughing first observed (299). 

intellect. 

Understanding of actions and of use of utensils more developed 
than ability to interpret representations of them (I, 64, 65). 

Speech. — Voluntary sound-imitations gain in frequency and 
accuracy ; genuine echolalia (148). Imperfect imitations (149). 
Multiplicity of meanings in the same utterance (150). Distinguish- 
ing men from women. Combination of two words into a sentence, 
seven hundred and seventh day ; words confounded ; also gestures 
and movements ; but not in the expression of joy and grief (151, 152). 

TWENTY-FIFTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — Color-tests, red and green ; 
seven hundred and fifty-eighth day, eleven times right, six wrong ; 
seven hundred and fifty- ninth, seven right, five wrong ; seven hun- 
dred and sixtieth, nine right, five wrong (8). Does not yet Mow 
what blue and green signify. Moves and handles himself well in 
twilight (21). 



xxxiv THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

Seeing Near and Distant Objects. — One hundred and eighth 
week, power of accommodation good ; small photographic likenesses 
recognized (56). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Progress is extraordinary. Does not pronounce a per- 
fect " u." All sound-imitations more manifold, etc. ; begins say- 
ing " so " when any object is brought to appointed place (152). Has 
become more teachable, repeats three words imperfectly. Evidence 
of progress of memory, understanding and articulation in answers 
given. No word invented by himself ; calls his nurse wold, probably 
from the often-heard " ja wohl." Correct use of single words picked 
up increases surprisingly (153). Misunderstandings rational ; words 
better understood ; reasoning developed (154). Inductive reasoning. 
Progress in forming sentences. Sentence of five words. Pronouns 
signify objects or qualities (155, 156). 

TWENTY-SIXTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — Seven hundred and sixty- 
third day, 15 right, 1 wrong. Three colors pointed out ; disinclina- 
tion to continue (8). Seven hundred and sixty-fifth day, green con- 
founded with yellow. One hundred and tenth week, right 78, wrong 
22. Blue added. End of one hundred and tenth week to one 
hundred and twelfth week, right 124, wrong 36. Yellow more surely 
recognized than other colors. Violet added (9). Colors taken 
separately. One hundred and twelfth week, right 44, wrong 11. 
Tests in both ways ; attention not continuous. Gray is added. One 
hundred and twelfth and one hundred and thirteenth weeks, right 
90, wrong 27 (10, 11). Child does not know what "green "means 
in one hundred and twelfth week (21). 

Seeing Wear and Distant Objects. — One hundred and thirteenth 
week, articles of furniture recognized in pictures at distance of three 
inches or three feet (56). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — First attempts at climbing (331). 



INTELLECT. 

Child points out objects in pictures, and repeats names given to 
3m ; list of results (156). Points out of his own accord, with cer- 



A CONSPECTUS. xxxv 

tainty, in the picture-book. Appropriates many words not taught 
him, tola for " Kohlen," dais for " Salz." Others correctly said and 
used (157). Some of his mutilated words not recognizable ; " sch " 
sometimes left out, sometimes given as z or ss. Independent thoughts 
expressed by words more frequently; "Good-night" said to the 
Christmas-tree (158). Verb used (in the infinitive) showing growth 
of intellect ; learning of tricks decreases (159). No notion of num- 
ber ; does not understand " Thank you," but thanks himself. More 
names of animals, learned from adults ; no onomatopoeia (160). 

TWENTY-SEVENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — Color-tests, from one hun- 
dred and fourteenth to one hundred and sixteenth week, four trials, 
colors mixed ; result, 59 right, 22 wrong (11). Blue especially 
confounded with violet, also with green. Four trials in one hun- 
dred and fourteenth and one hundred and 'fifteenth weeks; re- 
sult, 58 right, 32 wrong (12). Two trials in one hundred and fif- 
teenth week ; result, 25 right, 16 wrong (13). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Uncomfortable feeling 
through pity ; child weeps if human forms cut out of paper are 
in danger of mutilation (150, 151). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Pleasure in climbing begins (280). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Activity of thought. Observation and comparison. 
Gratitude does not appear (161). Wishes expressed by verbs in the 
infinitive or by substantives. Adverbs ; indefinite pronouns. Seven 
hundred and ninety-sixth day, makes the word Messen (162). Wold 
and atta have almost disappeared. Independent applications of 
words (163). Monologues less frequent. Begs apple to give to a 
puppet. Echolalia prominent. Tones and noises imitated (164). 
Laughing when others laugh ; fragments of a dialogue repeated. 
Feeble memory for answers and numbers. Eight hundred and tenth 
day, gave his own name for first time in answer to a question (165). 
No question yet asked by the child. The article is not used. Pro- 
nunciation slowly becoming correct (166). 



XXXvi THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

TWENTY-EIGHTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — One hundred and twenty- 
first week, greater uncertainty (13). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Fear of pigs (108). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Going on all-fours ; jumping, climbing 
gives pleasure (280). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Rapid increase of activity in forming ideas, and greater 
certainty in use of words. Ambition ; observation and combina- 
tion ; beginning of self-control ; use of his own name and of names 
of parents ; independent thinking (167). Increase in number of 
words correctly pronounced ; attempt to use prepositions ; first in- 
telligent use of the article (168). Questioning active; first spon- 
taneous question on eight hundred and forty-fifth day. " Where % " 
is his only interrogative word. Reproduction of foreign expressions 
(169). Imagination lively ; paper cups used like real ones. Articu- 
lation better, but still deficient. Many parts of the body named 
correctly (170). Child makes remarks for a quarter of an hour at 
a time concerning objects about him, sings, screams in sleep (171). 

TWENTY-NINTH MONTH. 



Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — One hundred and twenty- 
fourth week, right, 58 ; wrong, 49. Eight hundred and sixty-eighth 
day, child takes colors of his own accord and names them ; con- 
founding rose, gray, and pale-green, brown and gray, blue and 
violet. One hundred and twenty-fourth and one hundred and 
twenty-fifth weeks, right, 80 ; wrong, 34 (14). Red and yellow gen- 
erally named rightly ; blue and green not. Red and yellow are 
removed; child is less interested. One hundred and twenty-fifth 
and one hundred and twenty-sixth weeks, right, 80; wrong, 63. 
Orange confounded with yellow, blue with violet, green with gray, 
black with brown. Failure of attempt to induce child to put like 
colors together, or to select colors by their names (15). 



A CONSPECTUS. xxxvii 

Direction of Look. — One hundred and twenty-fourth week, gaze 
follows ball thrown (50). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Fear of dogs (168). 

INTELLECT. 

Personal pronoun used in place of his own name. Inflection of 
verbs appears, but the infinitive is generally used for imperative ; 
regular and irregular verbs begin to be distinguished (171). Desire 
expressed by infinitive. Numbering active ; numerals confounded. 
Eight hundred and seventy-eighth day, nine-pins counted " one, 
one, one," etc. (172). Questioning increases ; " too much " is con- 
founded with " too little." Yet memory gains (173). Sounds of 
animals well remembered. Slow progress in articulation (174). 

Feeling of Self. — Personal pronoun in place of his own name ; 
"me "but not yet "I" (202). 

THIRTIETH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — One hundred and twenty- 
sixth, one hundred and twenty-seventh, and one hundred and 
twenty-eighth weeks, four trials with single color at a time; 75 
right, 34 wrong. Eight hundred and ninety-eighth day, every color 
rightly named ; some guessing on blue and green (16). 

Interpretation of what is seen. — Persistent desire daily to 
" write " locomotives (66). 

Hearing. — While eating, by chance puts hand to ear while kettle 
of boiling water stood before him ; notices diminution in force of 
sound (88). 

WILL. 

Instinctive Movements. — Mounting a staircase without help ; ten 
days later with hands free (280, 281). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Independent activity of thought. When language fails, 
he considers well (174). Deliberation without words; concepts 
formed. Intellectual advance shown in first intentional use of lan- 
guage (175). Only interrogative word is still " Where "? " " I " does 
not appear, but " me " is used. Sentences independently applied 



XXXVlii THE MIND OF TEE CHILD. 

(176). More frequent use of the plural in nouns ; of the article ; of 
the strong inflection ; auxiliaries omitted or misemployed. Twofold 
way of learning correct pronunciation (177). Memory for words de- 
noting objects good ; right and left confounded (178). 

THIRTY-FIRST MONTH. 



Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — Nine hundred and thirty- 
fourth day, child says he can not tell green and blue. Green mostly 
called gray; blue, violet (17). 

Feeling. — Sensibility to Temperature. — Child laughs joyously in 
cold bath (115). 

WILL. 

Weakness of will shown by ceasing to eat when told that he has 
had enough (344). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Onomatopoeia; imitation of locomotive- whistle (91). 
Two new questions. Indefinite article more frequent. Individual 
formations of words, as comparative of " high " ; " key-watch." 
Confounding of " to-day " and "yesterday " (178). Forming of sen- 
tences imperfect. Reporting of faults. Calls things " stupid " when 
he is vexed by them. Changes occupation frequently. Imitation 
less frequent. Singing in sleep. " Sch " not yet pronounced (179). 

Feeling of. Self. — Causing change in objects, pouring water into 
and out of vessels (193). Laughing at image of self in mirror (201). 

THIRTY-SECOND MONTH. 



Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — One hundred and thirty- 
eighth and a few previous weeks, six trials, child taking colors and 
naming them ; right 119, wrong, 38 (16, 17). Green and blue called 
" nothing at all." Unknown colors named green ; leaves of roses 
called " nothing," as are whitish colors. One hundred and thirty- 
eighth and one hundred and thirty-ninth weeks, three trials ; right, 
93, wrong, 39 (17, 18). Green begins to be rightly named, blue less 
often (18). 



A CONSPECTUS, xxxix 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — " I " begins to displace the name of child. Sentence 
correctly applied. Clauses formed. Particle separated in compound 
verbs. Longer names and sentences distinctly spoken, but the influ- 
ence of dialect appears (180). Memory improved, but fastidious; 
good for what is interesting and intelligible to child (181). 

Feeling of Self.— Fourfold designation of self (202). 

THIRTY-THIRD MONTH. 



Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — One hundred and thirty- 
ninth, one hundred and forty-first, and one hundred and forty-sixth 
weeks, took colors of his own accord and named them ; result of 
three trials, 66 right, 19 wrong (18). 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Fear of even smallest dog 
(168). 

INTELLECT. 

Understanding that violations of well-known precepts have un- 
pleasant consequences (21). 

Speech. — Strength of memory shown in characteristic remarks 
Narrative of feeding fowls (181). Interest in animals and other 
moving objects ; lack of clearness in concepts of animal and ma- 
chine ; meaning of word " father " includes also " uncle " ; selfhood 
more sharply manifested. Confounds " too much " with " too little," 
etc. (182). 

Feeling of Self. — " I " especially used in " I want that," etc. (202). 

THIRTY-FOURTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — " Green " rightly applied to 
leaves and grass (18). Order in which colors are rightly named up 
to this time ; right, one thousand and forty-four ; wrong, four hun- 
dred and forty-two : right, 70'3 per cent ; wrong, 29-7. Yellow and 
red much sooner named rightly than green and blue (19). 

will. 
Instinctive Movements. — First gymnastic exercises (281). 



xl THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

Expressive Movements. — Kissing an expression of thankfulness 
(306). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Repeating, for fun, expressions heard. Calls, without 
occasion, the name of the nurse ; calls others by her name, some- 
times correcting himself. Seldom speaks of himself in third per- 
son ; gradually uses " Du " in address ; uses " What ? " in a new way. 
One thousand and twenty-eighth day, " Why ? " first used ; instinct 
of causality expressed in language (183). Questioning repeated to 
weariness. Articulation perfected, with some exceptions (184). 

Feeling of Self.— Repeats the " I " heard, meaning by it " you " 
(202). 

THIRTY-FIFTH MONTH. 

WILL. 

Reflex Movements. — Responsive movement in sleeping child (221). 

INTELLECT. 

Speech. — Fondness for singing increases ; pleasure m compass 
and power of his voice (185). 

THIRTY-SIXTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Hearing. — Musical notes C, D, E, could not be rightly named 
by child, in spite of teaching (90). 

INTELLECT. 

"When?" not used until close of the third year (184). Great 
pleasure in singing, but imitation here not very successful, though 
surprisingly so in regard to speech. Grammatical errors more rare. 
Long sentences correctly but slowly formed. Ambition manifested 
in doing things without help (185). 

Invention in language rare. Participles well used (186). 

THIRTY-SEVENTH MONTH. 

SENSES. 

Sight. — Discrimination of Colors. — Colors named correctly ex- 
cept very dark or pale ones (21). 



A CONSPECTUS. x ]i 

Organic Sensations and Emotions. — Night's sleep from eleven 
to twelve hours ; day-naps no longer required (163). Fear (in sleep) 
of pigs (168). 

intellect. 

Speech. — Child's manner of speaking approximates more and 
more rapidly to that of the family (186). 



FORTIETH MONTH. 

INTELLECT. 

Feeling of Self. — Fortieth month, pleased with his shadow (201). 



THE MIND OF THE CHILD, 



THIRD PART. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. 

The development of the intellect depends in so 
great measure upon the modification of innate endow- 
ments through natural environment and education, even 
before systematic instruction begins, and the methods 
of education are so manifold, that it is at present impos- 
sible to make a complete exposition of a normal intel- 
lectual development. Such an exposition would neces- 
sarily comprise in the main two stages : 

1. The combination of sensuous impressions into 
perceptions (Wahrnehmungen) ; which consists essen- 
tially in this — that the sensation, impressing itself di- 
rectly upon our experience, is by the intellect, now be- 
ginning to act, co-ordinate in space and time. 

2. The combination of perceptions into ideas ; in 
particular into sense-intuitions and concepts. A sense- 
intuition (Anschauung) is a perception together with its 
cause, the object of the sensation ; a concept (Begrifl) 
results from the union of the previously separated per- 
ceptions, which are then called separate marks or qualities. 

The investigation of each of these stages in the child 



2 THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

is in itself a great labor, which an individual may indeed 
begin upon, but can not easily carry through uniformly 
in all directions. 

I have indeed tried to collect recorded facts, but have 
found only very little trustworthy material, and accord- 
ingly I confine myself essentially to my own observa- 
tions on my child. These are not merely perfectly trust- 
worthy, even to the minutest details (I have left out 
everything of a doubtful character), but they are the 
most circumstantial ever published in regard to the in- 
tellectual development of a child. But I have been ac- 
quainted with a sufficient number of other children to be 
certain that the child observed by me did not essentially 
differ from other healthy and intelligent boys in regard 
to the principal points, although the time at which de- 
velopment takes place, and the rapidity of it, differ a 
good deal in different individuals. Girls often appear 
to learn to speak earlier than boys ; but further on they 
seem to possess a somewhat inferior capacity of develop- 
ment of the logical functions, or to accomplish with less 
ease abstractions of a higher order ; whereas in boys the 
emotional functions, however lasting their reactions, 
are not so delicately graduated as in girls. 

Without regard to such differences, of which I am 
fully aware, the following chapters treat exclusively of 
the development of purely intellectual cerebral activity 
in both sexes during the first years. I acknowledge, 
however, that I have found the investigation of the in- 
fluence of the affectional movements, or emotions, upon 
the development of the intellect in the child during the 
first years so difficult, that I do not for the present enter 
into details concerning it. 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 



The observations relate, first, to the non-dependence 
of the child's intellect upon language ; next, to the ac- 
quirement of speech ; lastly, to the development of the 
feeling of self, the " I "-feeling. 



CHAPTEK XVI 



OF LANGUAGE. 



A wide-spread prejudice declares, " Without lan- 
guage, no understanding " ! Subtile distinctions between 
understanding and reason have limited the statement to 
the latter term. But even in the restricted form, " With- 
out verbal language, no reason," it is at least unproved. 

Is there any thinking without words f The ques- 
tion takes this shape. 

Now, for the thinker, who has long since forgotten 
the time when he himself learned to speak, it is difficult, 
or even impossible, to give a decided answer. For the 
thinking person can not admit that he has been thinking 
without words ; not even when he has caught himself 
arriving at a logical result without a continuity in his 
unexpressed thought. A break occurred in the train. 
There was, however, a train of thought. Breaks alone 
yield no thought ; they arise only after words have been 
associated with thoughts, and so they can by no means 
serve as evidence of a thinking without words, although 
the ecstasy of the artist, the profundity of the meta- 
physician, may attain the last degree of unconscious- 
ness, and a dash may interrupt the thought-text. 



4 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

But the child not yet acquainted with verbal lan- 
guage, who has not been prematurely artificialized by 
training and by suppression of his own attempts to 
express his states of mind, who learns of himself to 
think, just as he learns of himself to see and hear — 
such a child shows plainly to the attentive observer 
that long before knowledge of the word as a means of 
understanding among men, and long before the first suc- 
cessful attempt to express himself in articulate words — 
nay, long before learning the pronunciation of even a 
single word, he combines ideas in a logical manner — i. e., 
he thinks. Thinking is, it is true, "internal speech," 
but there is a speech without words. 

Facts in proof of this have already been given in 
connection with other points (Yol. I, pp. 88, 327, 328) ; 
others are given further on. 

It will not be superfluous, however, to put together 
several observations relating to the development of the 
childish intellect without regard to the acquirement of 
speech ; and to present them separately, as a sort of in- 
troduction to the investigation of the process of learning 
to speak. 

Memory; a causative combination of the earliest 
recollections, or memory-images ; purposive, deliberate 
movements for the lessening of individual strain — all 
these come to the child in greater or less measure inde- 
pendently of verbal language. The, as it were, embry- 
onic logic of the child does not need words. A brief 
explanation of the operation of these three factors will 
show this. Memory takes the first place in point of 
time. 

"Without memory no intellect is possible. The only 



THINKING WITHOUT WOEDS. 5 

material at the disposal of the intellect is received from 
the senses. It has been provided solely ont of sensa- 
tions. JSTow a sensation in itself alone, as a simple fun- 
damental experience affecting primarily the one who 
has the sensation, can not be the object of any intel- 
lectual operation whatever. In order to make such 
activity possible there must be several sensations : two 
of different kinds, of unequal strength ; or two of dif- 
ferent kinds, of the same strength ; or two of the same 
kind unequally strong ; in any case, two unlike sensa- 
tions (cf. my treatise " Elemente der reinen Empfin- 
dungslehre," Jena, 1876), if the lowest activity of the 
intellect, comparison, is to operate. But because the 
sensations that are to be compared can not all exist 
together, recollection of the earlier ones is necessary 
(for the comparison) ; that is, individual or personal 
memory. 

This name I give to the memory formed by means 
of individual impressions (occurrences, experiences) in 
contrast with the phyletio memory, or instinct, the 
memory of the race, which results from the inheritance 
of the traces of individual experiences of ancestors ; of 
this I do not here speak. 

All sensations leave traces behind in the brain ; weak 
ones leave such as are easy to be obliterated by others ; 
strong ones, traces more enduring. 

At the beginning of life it seems to be the depart- 
ment of taste (sweet) and of smell (smell of milk) in 
which memory is first operative (YoL I, p. 124). Then 
comes the sense of touch (in nursing). Next in order 
the sense of sight chiefly asserts itself as an early pro- 
moter of memory. Hearing does not come till later. 



6 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

If the infant, in the period from three to six months 
of age, is brought ' into a room he has not before seen, 
his expression changes ; he is astonished. The new sen- 
sations of light, the different apportionment of light and 
dark, arouse his attention ; and when he comes back to 
his former surroundings he is not astonished. These 
have lost the stimulus of novelty — i. e., a certain remi- 
niscence of them has remained with the child, they have 
impressed themselves upon him. 

Long before the thirtieth week, healthy children dis- 
tinguish human faces definitely from one another ; first, 
the faces of the mother and the nurse, then the face of 
the father, seen less often ; and all three of these from 
every strange face. Probably faces are the first thing 
frequently perceived clearly by the eye. It has been 
found surprising that infants so much earlier recognize 
human faces and forms, and follow them with the gaze, 
than they do other objects. But human forms and 
faces, being large, moving objects, awaken interest 
more than other objects do ; and on account of the 
manner of their movements, and because they are the 
source from which the voice issues, are essentially dif- 
ferent from other objects in the field of vision. " In 
these movements they are also characterized as a co- 
herent whole, and the face, as a whitish-reddish patch 
with the two sparkling eyes, is always a part of this 
image that will be easy to recognize, even for one who 
has seen it but a few times " (Helmholtz). 

Hence the memory for faces is established earlier 
than that for other visual impressions, and with this the 
ability to recognize members of the family. A little 
girl, who does not speak at all, looks at pictures with 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. f 

considerable interest in the seventh month, " and points 
meantime with her little forefinger to the heads of the 
human figures " (Frau von Striimpell). 

My child in the second month could already localize 
the face and voice of his mother, but the so-called 
knowing (" Erkennen ") is a recognition (Wiedererken- 
nen) which presupposes a very firm association of the 
memory-images. This fundamental function attached 
to the memory can have but a slow development, be- 
cause it demands an accumulation of memory-images 
and precision in them. 

In the second three months it is so far developed, at 
least, that strange faces are at once known as strange, 
and are distinguished from those of parents and nurse ; 
for they excite astonishment or fear (crying) while the 
faces of the latter do not. But the latter, if absent, are 
not yet, at this period, missed by most children. Hence 
it is worthy of note that a girl in her twelfth month 
recognized her nurse after six days' absence, immediate- 
ly, " with sobs of joy," as the mother reports (Frau von 
Striimpell) ; another recognized her father, after a 
separation of four days, even in the tenth month 
(Lindner). 

In the seventh month my child did not recognize 
his nurse, to whom he had for months been accustomed, 
after an absence of four weeks. Another child, how- 
ever, at four months noticed at evening the absence of 
his nurse, who had been gone only a day, and cried 
lustily upon the discovery, looking all about the room, 
and crying again every time after searching in vain 
(Wynia, 1881). At ten months the same child used to 
be troubled by the absence of his parents, though he 



8 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

bore himself with indifference toward them when he 
saw them again. At this period a single nine-pin out 
of the whole set could not be taken away without his 
noticing it, and at the age of a year and a half this child 
knew at once whether one of his ten animals was missing 
or not. In the nineteenth and twenty-first months my 
boy recognized his father immediately from a distance, 
after a separation of several days, and once after two 
weeks' absence ; and in his twenty-third month his joy 
at seeing again his playthings after an absence of eleven 
and a half weeks (with his parents) was very lively, great 
as was the child's forgetfulness in other respects at this 
period. A favorite toy could often be taken from him 
without its being noticed or once asked for. But when 
the child — in his eighteenth month — after having been 
accustomed to bring to his mother two towels which he 
would afterward carry back to their place, on one occa- 
sion had only one towel given back to him, he came 
with inquiring look and tone to get the second. 

This observation, which is confirmed by some similar 
ones, proves that at a year and a half the memory for 
visual and motor ideas that belong together was already 
well developed without the knowledge of the correspond- 
ing words. But artificial associations of this sort need 
continual renewing, otherwise they are soon forgotten ; 
the remembrance of them is speedily lost even in the 
years of childhood. 

It is noteworthy, in connection with this, that what 
has been lately acquired, e. g., verses learned by heart, 
can be recited more fluently during sleep than in the 
waking condition. At the age of three years and five 
months a girl recited a stanza of five lines on the occa- 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 9 

sion of a birthday festival, not without some stumbling, 
but one night soon after the birthday she repeated the 
whole of the rhymes aloud in her sleep without stum- 
bling at all (Frau yon Striimpell). 

L[t is customary, generally, to assume that the memory 
of adults does not extend further back than to the fourth 
year of life. Satisfactory observations on this point are 
not known to exist. But it is certainly of the first con- 
sequence, in regard to the development of the faculty of 
memory, whether the later experiences of the child 
have any characteristic in common with the earlier 
experiences. For many of these experiences no such 
agreement exists ; nothing later on reminds us of the 
once existing inability to balance the. head, or of the 
former inability to turn around, to sit, to stand, to walk, 
of the inborn difficulty of hearing, inability to accom- 
modate the eye, and to distinguish our own body from 
foreign objects ; hence, no man, and no child, remembers 
these states. But this is not true of what is acquired 
later. My child when less than three years old remem- 
bered very well — and would almost make merry over 
himself at it — the time when he could not yet talk, but 
articulated incorrectly and went imperfectly through the 
first, often-repeated performances taught by his nurse, 
" How tall is the child % " and " Where is the rogue \ " 
If I asked him, after he had said " Friihstiicken " correct- 
ly, how he used to say it, he would consider, and would 
require merely a suggestion of accessory circumstances, 
in order to give the correct answer Friticlc, and so with 
many words difficult to pronounce. The child of three 
and even of four years can remember separate experi- 
ences of his second year, and a person that will take 



10 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the pains to remind him frequently of them will be able 
easily to carry the recollections of the second and third 
years far on into the more advanced years of childhood. 
It is merely because no one makes such a useless experi- 
ment that older children lose the memory-images of 
their second year. These fade out because they are not 
combined with new ones. 

At what time, however, the first natural association 
of a particular idea with a new one that appears weeks 
or months later, takes place without being called up by 
something in the mean time, is very hard to determine. 
On this point we must first gather good observations 
out of the second and third half-years, like the follow- 
ing: 

" In the presence of a boy a year and a half old it 
was related that another boy whom he knew, and who 
was then in the country far away, had fallen and hurt 
his knee. ISTo one noticed the child, who was playing as 
the story was told. After some weeks the one who had 
fallen came into the room, and the little one in a lively 
manner ran up to the new-comer and cried, ( Fall, hurt 
leg!' "(Stiebel, 1865). 

Another example is given by Gr. Lindner (1882) : 
" The mother of a two-year-old child had made for it out 
of a postal-card a sled (Schlitten), which was destroyed 
after a few hours, and found its way into the waste- 
basket. Just four weeks later another postal-card 
comes, and it is taken from the carrier by the child and 
handed to the mother with the words, ( Mamma, Litten ! ' 
This was in summer, when there was nothing to remind 
the child of the sled. Soon after the same wish was 
expressed on the receipt of a letter also." 



THINKING WITHOUT WOKDS. H 

I have known like cases of attention, of recollection. 



and of intelligence in the third year where they were 
not suspected. The child, unnoticed, hears all sorts of 
things said, seizes on this or that expression, and weeks 
after brings into connection, fitly or unfitly, the memory- 
images, drawing immediately from an insufficient num- 
ber of particular cases a would-be general conclusion. 

Equally certain with this fact is the other, less known 
or less noticed, that, even before the first attempts at 
speaking, such a generalizing and therefore concept- 
forming combination of memory -images regularly takes 
place. 

All children in common have inborn in them the 
ability to combine all sorts of sense-impressions con- 
nected with food, when these appear again individually, 
with one another, or with memory-images of such im- 
pressions, so that adaptive movements suited to the ob- 
taining of fresh food arise as the result of this associa- 
tion. In the earlier months these are simple and easier 
to be seen, and I have given several examples (Vol. I, 
pp. 250, 260, 329, 333). Later such movements, through 
the perfecting of the language of gesture and the growth 
of this very power of association, become more and more 
complicated : e. g., in his sixteenth month my boy saw 
a closed box, out of which he had the day before re- 
ceived a cake; he at once made with his hands a beg- 
ging movement, yet he could not speak a word. In the 
twenty-first month I took out of the pocket of a coat 
which was hanging with many others in the wardrobe a 
biscuit and gave it to the child. When he had eaten it, 
he went directly to the wardrobe and looked in the 
right coat for a second biscuit. At this period also the 



12 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

child can not have been thinking in the unspoken words, 
" Get biscuit — wardrobe, coat, pocket, look," for he did 
not yet know the words. 

Even in the sixth month an act of remarkable 
adaptiveness was once observed, which can not be called 
either accidental or entirely voluntary, and if it was 
fully purposed it would indicate a well-advanced devel- 
opment of understanding in regard to food without 
knowledge of words. When the child, viz., after con- 
siderable experience in nursing at the breast, discovered 
that the flow of milk was less abundant, he used to place 
his hand hard on the breast as if he wanted to force out 
the milk by pressure. Of course there was here no in- 
sight into the causal connection, but it is a question 
whether the firm laying on of the little hand was not 
repeated for the reason that the experience had been 
once made accidentally, that after doing this the nursing 
was less difficult. 

On the other hand, an unequivocal complicated act 
of deliberation occurred in the seventeenth month. The 
child could not reach his playthings in the cupboard, 
because it was too high for him ; he ran about, brought 
a traveling-bag, got upon it, and took what he wanted. 
In this case he could not possibly think in words, since 
he did not yet know words. 

My child tries further (in the nineteenth and twen- 
tieth months) in a twofold fashion to make known his 
eager wish to leave the room, not being as yet able to 
speak. He takes any cloth he fancies and brings it to 
me. I put it about him, he wraps himself in it, and, 
climbing beseechingly on my knee, makes longing, piti- 
ful sounds, which do not cease until after I have opened 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 13 

a door through which he goes into another room. Then 
he immediately throws away the cloth and runs about 
exulting. 

r — The other performance is this : When the child 
feels the need of relieving his bowels, he is accustomed 
to make peculiar grunting sounds, by means of a strain 
of the abdomen, shutting the mouth and breathing loud, 
by jerks, through the nose. He is then taken away. 
Now, if he is not suited with the place where he hap- 
pens to be, at any time, he begins to make just such 
sounds. If he is taken away, no such need appears at 
all, but he is in high glee. Here is the expectation, "I 
shall be taken away if I make that sound." 

Whether we are to admit, in addition, an intentional 
deception in this case, or whether only a logical process 
takes place, I can not decide. In the whole earlier and 
later behavior of the child there is no ground for the 
first assumption, and the fact that he employs this arti- 
fice while in his carriage, immediately after he has been 
waited on, is directly against it. 

To how small an extent, some time previous to this, 
perceptions were made use of to simplify his own exer- 
tions, i. e., were combined and had motor effect, appears 
from an observation in the sixteenth month. Earlier 
than this, when I used to say, " Give the ring," I always 
laid an ivory ring, that was tied to a thread, before the 
child, on the table. I now said the same thing — after 
an interval of a week — while the same ring was hang- 
ing near the chair by a red thread a foot long, so that 
the child, as he sat on the chair, could just reach it, but 
only with much pains. He made a grasp now, upon 
getting the sound-impression " ring," not at the thread, 



14 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

which would have made the seizure of the ring, hang- 
ing freely, very easy for him, but directly at the ring 
hanging far below him, and gave it to me. And when 
the command was repeated, it did not occur to him to 
touch the thread. 

It is likewise a sign of small understanding that the 
mouth is always opened in smelling of a fragrant flower 
or perfume (Yol. I, p. 135). Deficiencies of this kind 
are, indeed, quite logical from the standpoint of childish 
experience. Because, at an earlier period the pleasant 
smell (of milk) always came in connection with the 
pleasant taste, therefore, thinks the child, in every case 
where there is a pleasant smell there will also be some- 
thing that tastes good. The common or collective con- 
cept taste- smell had not yet (in the seventeenth month) 
been differentiated into the concepts taste and smell. 

In the department of the sense of hearing the differ- 
entiation generally makes its appearance earlier ; mem- 
ory, as a rule, later. Yet children whose talent for 
music is developed early, retain melodies even in their 
first year of life. A girl to whom some of the Froebel 
songs were sung, and who was taught appropriate move- 
ments of the hands and feet, always performed the prop- 
er movement when one of the melodies was merely 
hummed, or a verse was said (in the thirteenth month), 
without confounding them at all. This early and firm 
association of sound-images with motor-images is pos- 
sible only when interest is attached to it — i. e., when the 
attention has been directed often, persistently, and with 
concentration, upon the things to be combined. Thus, 
this very child (in the nineteenth month), when her fa- 
vorite song, " "Who will go for a Soldier ? " (" Wer will 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 15 

nnter die Soldaten ? ") was sung to her, could not only 
join in the rhyme at the end of the verse, but, no mat- 
ter where a stop was made, she would go on, in a man- 
ner imperfect, indeed, but easily intelligible (Fran Dr. 
Friedemann). 

Here, however, in addition to memory and atten- 
tion, heredity is to be considered ; since such a talent is 
wholly lacking in certain families, but in others exists 
in all the brothers and sisters. 

In performances of this kind, a superior understand- 
ing is not by any means exhibited, but a stronger mem- 
ory and faculty of association. These associations are 
not, however, of a logical sort, but are habits acquired 
through training, and they may even retard the devel- 
opment of the intellect if they become numerous. For 
they may obstruct the formation, at an early period, of 
independent ideas, merely on account of the time they 
claim. Often, too, these artificial associations are almost 
useless for the development of the intellect. They are 
too special. On this ground I am compelled to cen- 
sure the extravagancies, that are wide-spread especially in 
Germany, of the Froebel methods of occupying young 
children. 

The logic of the child naturally operates at the be- 
ginning with much more extensive, and therefore less 
intensive, notions than those of adults, with notions 
which the adult no longer forms. But the child does 
not, on that account, proceed illogically, although he 
does proceed awkwardly. Some further examples may 
illustrate. 

The adult does not ordinarily try whether a door 
that he has just bolted is fast ; but the one-year-old 



IQ THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

child tests carefully the edge of the door he has shut, 
to see whether it is really closed, because he does not 
understand the effect of lock and bolt. For even in 
the eighteenth month he goes back and forth with a 
key, to the writing-desk, with the evident purpose of 
opening it. But at twelve months, when he tries 
whether it is fast, he does not think of the key at all, 
and does not yet possess a single word. 

An adult, before watering flowers with a watering- 
pot, will look to see whether there is water in it. The 
child of a year and a half, who has seen how watering 
is done, finds special pleasure in going from flower to 
flower, even with an empty watering-pot, and making 
the motions of pouring upon each one separately, as if 
water would really come out. For him the notion 
"watering-pot" is identical with the notion "filled 
watering-pot," because at first he was acquainted with 
the latter only. 

Much of what is attributed to imagination in very 
young children rests essentially on the formation of 
such vague concepts, on the inability to combine con- 
stant qualities into sharply defined concepts. When, in 
the twenty-third month, the child holds an empty cup 
to his mouth and sips and swallows, and does it repeat- 
edly, and with a serene, happy expression, this " play " 
is founded chiefly on the imperfect notion " filled cup." 
The child has so often perceived something to drink, 
drinking-vessel, and the act of drinking, in combination 
with one another, that the one peremptorily demands 
the other when either appears singly ; hence the pleas- 
ure in pouring out from empty pitchers into empty 
cups, and in drinking out of empty cups (in second to 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 17 

fifth years). When adults do the same in the play of 
the theatre, this action always has a value as language, 
it signifies something for other persons; but with the 
child, who plays in this fashion entirely alone, the 
pleasure consists in the production of familiar ideas to- 
gether with agreeable feelings, which are, as it were, 
crystallized with comparative clearness out of the dull 
mass of undefined perceptions. These memory-images 
become real existences, like the hallucinations of the 
insane, because the sensuous impressions probably im- 
press themselves directly — without reflection — upon 
the growing brain, and hence the memory-images of 
them, on account of their vividness, can not always be 
surely distinguished from the perceptions themselves. 
Most of the plays that children invent of themselves 
may be referred to this fact ; on the other hand, the play 
of hide-and-seek (especially in the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth months), and, nearly allied to this, the hunting 
after scraps of paper, bits of biscuit, buttons, and other 
favorite objects (in the fifteenth month), constitute an 
intellectual advance. 

By practice in this kind of seeking for well-known, 
purposely concealed objects, the intelligence of little 
children can easily be increased to an astonishing de- 
gree, so that toward the end of the second year they al- 
ready understand some simple tricks of the juggler; for 
example, making a card disappear. But after I had 
discontinued such exercises for months, the ordinary 
capacity for being duped was again present. 

This ease with which children can be deceived is to 
be attributed to lack of experience far more than to 
lack of intelligence. When the child of a year and a 



18 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

half offers leaves to a sheep or a stag, observes the 
strange animal with somewhat timid astonishment, and 
a few days after holds out some hastily plucked grass- 
blades to a chaffinch he sees hopping across the road, 
supposing that the bird will likewise take them from 
his hand and eat them — an observation that I made on 
my child exactly as Sigismund did on his — it is not 
right to call such an act " stupid " ; the act shows igno- 
rance — i. e., inexperience — but it is not illogical. The 
child would be properly called stupid only in case he 
did not learn the difference between the animals fed. 
When, on the other hand, the child of two and a half 
years, entirely of his own accord, holds a watch first to 
his left ear, then to his right, listens both times, and then 
says, " The watch goes, goes too ! " then, pointing with 
his finger to a clock, cries with delight, " The clock goes 
too," we rightly find in such independent induction a 
proof of intellect. For the swinging of the pendulum 
and the ticking had indeed often been perceived, but 
to connect the notion of a " going clock " with the visi- 
ble but noiseless swinging, just as with the audible but 
invisible ticking of the watch, requires a pretty well 
advanced power of abstraction. 

That the ability to abstract may show itself, though 
imperfectly, even in the first year, is, according to my 
observations, certain. Infants are struck by a quality of 
an object — e. g., the white appearance of milk. The 
" taking away " or " abstracting " then consists in the iso- 
lating of this quality out of innumerable other sight-im- 
pressions and the blending of the impressions into a 
concept. The naming of this, which begins months 
later, by a rudimental word, like mum, is an outward 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 19 

sign of this abstraction, which did not at all lead to the 
formation of the concept, but followed it, as will be 
shown in detail further on (in the two following chap- 
ters). 

It would be interesting to collect observations con- 
cerning this reasoning power in the very earliest pe- 
riod, because at that time language does not interfere 
to help or to hinder. But it is just such observations 
that we especially lack. When a child in the twelfth 
month, on hearing a watch for the first time, cries out, 
" Tick-tick," looking meantime at the clock on the wall, 
he has not, in doing this, "formed," as G. Lindner sup- 
poses, " his first concept, although a vague and empty 
one as yet," but he had the concept before, and has now 
merely given a name to it for the first time. 

The first observation made in regard to his child by 
Darwin, which seemed to him to prove " a sort of prac- 
tical reflection," occurred on the one hundred and forty- 
fourth day. The child grasped his father's finger and drew 
it to his mouth, but his own hand prevented him from 
suckiug the finger. The child then, strangely enough, 
instead of entirely withdrawing his hand, slipped it along 
the finger so that he could get the end of the finger into 
his mouth. This proceeding was several times repeated, 
and was evidently not accidental but intentional. At 
the age of ^.Ye months, associations of ideas arose inde- 
pendently of all instruction. V Thus, e. g., the child, being 
dressed in hat and cloak, was very angry if he was not 
at once taken out of doors. 

How strong the reasoning power without words may 
be at a later period, the following additional observa- 
tions show : 



20 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

From the time when my child, like Sigismund's 
(both in the fifteenth month), had bnrned his finger in 
the flame of the candle, he conld not be induced to pnt 
his finger near the flame again, but he would sometimes 
put it in fun toward the flame without touching it, and 
he even (eighteen months old) carried a stick of wood 
of his own accord to the stove-door and pushed it in 
through the open slide, with a proud look at his par- 
ents. There is surely something more than an imita- 
tion here. 

Further, my child at first never used to let his 
mouth and chin be wiped without crying; from the 
fifteenth month on he kept perfectly quiet during the 
disagreeable operation. He must have noticed that this 
was finished sooner when he was quiet. 

vThe same thing can be observed in every little child, 
provided he is not too much talked to, punished, yielded 
to, or spoiled. In the nineteenth month it happened 
with my child that he resisted the command to lie down 
in the evening. I let him cry, and raise himself on his 
bed, but did not take him up, did not speak to him, did 
not use any force, but remained motionless and watch- 
ful near by. At last he became tired, lay down, and fell 
asleep directly. Here he acquired an understanding of 
the uselessness of crying in order to avoid obedience 
to commands. 

The knowledge of right (what is allowed and com- 
manded) and of wrong (what is forbidden) had been 
long since acquired. In the seventeenth month, e. g., 
a sense of cleanliness was strongly developed, and later 
(in the thirty-third month) the child could not, without 
lively protest, behold his nurse acting contrary to the 



THINKING WITHOUT WOKDS. 21 

directions that had been given to himself — e. g., putting 
the knife into her month or dipping bread into the milk. 
Emotions of this kind are less a proof of the existence of 
a sense of duty than of the understanding that violations 
of well-known precepts have unpleasant consequences 
— i. e., that certain actions bring in their train pleasant 
feelings, while other acts bring unpleasant feelings. 
How long before the knowledge of words these emotions 
began to exist I have, unfortunately, not succeeded in 
determining. 

But in many of the above cases — and they might 
without difficulty be multiplied by diligent observation 
— there is not the least indication of any influence of 
spoken words. Whether no attempt at speaking has 
preceded, or whether a small collection of words may 
have been made, the cases of child-intelligence adduced 
in this chapter, observed by myself, prove that with- 
out knowledge of verbal language, and independently 
of it, the logical activity of the child attains a high 
degree of development, and no reason exists for ex- 
plaining the intelligent actions of children who do 
not yet speak at all — i. e., do not yet clothe their ideas 
in words, but do already combine them with one an- 
other — as being different specifically from the intelli- 
gent (not instinctive) actions of sagacious orangs and 
chimpanzees. The difference consists far more in this, 
that the latter can not form so many, so clear, and so 
abstract conceptions, or so many and complicated com- 
binations of ideas, as can the gifted human child in the 
society of human beings — even hef ore he has learned to 
speak. When he has learned to speak, then the gap 
widens to such an extent that what before was in some 



22 THE HIND OF THE CHILD. 

respects almost the equal of humanity seems now a 
repulsive caricature of it. 

In order, then, to understand the real difference be- 
tween brute and man, it is necessary to ascertain how a 
child and a brute animal may have ideas without words, 
and may combine them for an end : whether it is done, 
e. g., with memory-images, as in dreaming. And it is 
necessary also to investigate the essential character of 
the process of learning to speak. 

Concerning the first problem, which is of uncommon 
psychogenetic interest and practical importance, a solu- 
tion seems to be promised in the investigation of the 
formation of concepts in the case of those born deaf, the 
so-called deaf and dumb children. On this point I offer 
first the words of a man of practical experience. 

The excellent superintendent of the Educational In- 
stitute for the Deaf and Dumb in Weimar, C. Oehl- 
wein (1867), well says : 

" The deaf-mute in his first years of life looks at, 
turns over, feels of objects that attract him, on all sides, 
and approaches those that are at a distance. By this 
he receives, like the young child who has all his senses, 
sensations and sensuous ideas ; * and from the objects 
themselves he apprehends a number of qualities, which 
he compares with one another or with the qualities of 
other objects, but always refers to the object which at 
the time attracts him. Herein he has a more correct or 
less correct sense-intuition of this object, according as 
he has observed, compared, and comprehended more or 
less attentively. As this object has affected him through 

* Empfindungsvorstellungen. 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 23 

sight and feeling, so he represents it to other persons 
also by characteristic signs for sight and indirectly for 
feeling also. He shapes or draws a copy of the object 
seen and felt with life and movement. For this he 
avails himself of the means that Nature has placed di- 
rectly within human power — the control over the move- 
ment of the facial muscles, over the nse of the hands, 
and, if necessary, of the feet also. These signs, not ob- 
tained from any one's suggestion, self -formed, which 
the deaf-mute employs directly in his representation, 
are, as it were, the given outline of the image which he 
has found, and they stand therefore in the closest rela- 
tion to the inner constitution of the individual that 
makes the representation. 

" But we find not only that the individual senses of 
the deaf-mute, his own observation and apprehension, 
are formative factors in the occurrences of sensation and 
perception, as is of course the case, but that the quali- 
ties of the objects observed by him, and associated, ac- 
cording to his individual tendencies, are also raised by 
him, through comparison, separation, grouping — through 
his own act, therefore — to general ideas, concepts, al- 
though as yet imperfect ones, and they are named and 
recognized again by peculiar signs intelligible to himself. 

"But in this very raising of an idea to a general 
idea, to a concept — a process connected with the form- 
ing of a sign — is manifested the influence of the lack of 
hearing and of speech upon the psychical development 
of the deaf-mute. It appears at first to be an advantage 
that the sign by which the deaf-mute represents an idea 
is derived from the impression, the image, the idea, 
which the user of the sign himself has or has had ; he 



24: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

expresses by the sign nothing foreign to him, but only 
what has become his own. But this advantage disap- 
pears when compared with the hindrance caused by this 
very circumstance in the raising of the individual idea 
to a general idea, for the fact that the latter is desig- 
nated by the image, or the elements of the image in 
which the former consists, is no small obstacle to it in 
attaining complete generality. The same bond that 
unites the concept with the conceiver binds it likewise 
to one of the individual ideas conceived — e. g., when, by 
pointing to his own flesh, his own skin, he designates 
the concept flesh, skin (in general also the flesh or the 
skin of animals) ; whereas, by means of the word, which 
the child who has all his senses is obliged to learn, a 
constraint is indeed exercised as something foreign, but 
a constraint that simply enforces upon his idea the claim 
of generality. 

" One example more. The deaf-mute designates the 
concept, or general idea, • red ' by lightly touching his 
lips. With this sign he indicates the red of the sky, of 
paintings, of dress-stuffs, of flowers, etc. Thus, in how- 
ever manifold connection with other concepts his con- 
cept i red ' may be repeated, it is to him as a concept 
always one and the same only. It is common to all 
the connections in which it repeatedly occurs." 

But before the thinking deaf-mute arrived at the 
concept " red," he formed for himself the ideas " lip, 
dress, sky, flower," etc. 

For a knowledge of intellectual development in the 
child possessed of all the senses, and of the great extent 
to which he is independent of verbal language in the 
formation of concepts, it is indispensable to make a col- 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 25 

lection of such concepts as uneducated deaf-mutes not 
acquainted either with the finger-alphabet or with ar- 
ticulation express by means of their own gestures in 
a manner intelligible to others. Their language, how- 
ever, comprises " not only the various expressive changes 
of countenance (play of feature), but also the varied 
movements of the hands (gesticulations), the positions, 
attitudes, bearing, and movements of the other parts of 
the entire body, through which the deaf-mute naturally, 
i. e., untouched hy educational influences, expresses his 
ideas and conceptions. 1 ' But I refrain from making 
such a catalogue here, as we are concerned with the fact 
that many concepts are, without any learning of words 
whatever, plainly expressed and logically comoined with 
one another, and their correctness is proved by the con- 
duct of any and every untaught child born deaf. Be- 
sides, such a catalogue, in order to possess the psychoge- 
netic value desired by me, needs a critical examination 
extremely difficult to carry through as to whether the 
" educational influences " supposed to be excluded are 
actually wholly excluded in all cases as they really are 
in some cases, e. g., in regard to food. 

Degerando (1827) has enumerated a long list of con- 
cepts, which deaf-mutes before they are instructed rep- 
resent by pantomimic gesture. Many of these forms 
of expression in French deaf-mutes are identical with 
those of German. It is most earnestly to be wished 
that this international language of feature and gesture 
used by children entirely uninstructed, born deaf, may 
be made accessible to psycho-physiological and linguistic 
study by means of pictorial representations — photo- 
graphic best of all. This should be founded on the ex- 



96 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

periences of German, French, English, Russian, Italian, 
and other teachers of deaf-mutes. 

For there is hardly a better proof that thinking is 
not dependent on the language of words than the con- 
duct of deaf-mutes, who express, indeed, many more 
concepts of unlike content in the same manner than 
any verbal language does — just as children with all their 
senses do before they possess a satisfactory stock of 
words — but who, by gesticulation and pantomime before 
receiving any instruction, demonstrate that concepts are 
formed without words. 

With reference to the manner in which uneducated 
deaf-mutes speak, the following examples are charac- 
teristic performances in gesture-language : 

One deaf-mute asks another, " Stay, go you % " (look 
of inquiry). Answer : " Go, I " (i. e., " Do you stay or 
go ? " "I go "). " Hunter hare shoots." 

"Arm, man, be strong," means, "The man's arm is 
strong." 

"E\, spectacles, see," means, "£T. sees with the 
spectacles." 

" Run I finished, go to sleep," means, " When I had 
finished running, I went to sleep." " Money, you ? " 
means, " Have you money ? " 

One of the most interesting sights I know of, in a 
psychological and physiological point of view, is a con- 
versation in gesture and pantomime between two or 
three children born totally deaf, who do not know that 
they are observed. I am indebted to Director Oehlwein, 
of Weimar, for the opportunity of such observations, as 
also for the above questions and answers. Especially 
those children (of about seven years) not yet instructed 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 27 

in articulation employ an astonishing number of looks 
and gestures, following one upon another with great 
rapidity, in order to effect an understanding with one 
another. They understand one another very easily, but, 
because their gestures, and particularly their excessively 
subtilized play of feature, do not appear in ordinary 
life, these children are just as hard to understand for 
the uninitiated as are men who speak a wholly foreign 
language without any gestures. Even the eye of the 
deaf-mute has a different expression from that of the 
person who talks. The look seems more " interested," 
and manifestly far fewer unnecessary movements of the 
eyes and contractions of the facial muscles are made by 
the deaf-mute than by the child of the same age who 
has his hearing. 

Further, deaf-mutes, even those of small ability, imi- 
tate all sorts of movements that are plainly visible much 
better, in general, than do persons with all their senses. 
I made, in presence of the children, several not very 
easy crossings of the fingers, put my hands in different 
positions, and the like — movements that they could not 
ever have seen — and I was surprised that some of the 
children at once made them deftly, whereas ordinary 
children first consider a long time, and then imitate 
clumsily. It is doubtless this exaltation of the imitative 
functions in deaf-mute children which makes it appear 
as if they themselves invented their gestures (see above, 
p. 23). Certainly they do not get their first signs through 
" any one's suggestion," they form them for themselves, 
but, so far as I see, only through imitation and the he- 
reditary expressive movements. The signs are in great 
part themselves unabridged imitations. The agreement, 



28 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

or "convention," which many teachers of deaf-mutes 
assume, and which would introduce an entirely cause- 
less, not to say mysterious, principle, consists in this, 
that all deaf-mutes in the beginning imitate the same 
thiug in the same way. Thus, through this perfectly 
natural accord of all, it comes to pass that they under- 
stand one another. When they have gained ideas, then 
they combiue the separate signs in manifold ways, as 
one who speaks combines words, in order to express new 
ideas ; they become thereby more and more difficult to 
be understood, and often are only with difficulty under- 
stood even among themselves ; and they are able only in 
very limited degree to form concepts of a higher order. 
" Nothing, being dead, space " — these are concepts of a 
very high order for them. 

For this reason it is easy to comprehend that a deaf- 
mute child, although he has learned but few words 
through instruction in articulation, weaves these con- 
tinually into his pantomimic conversation in place of 
his former elaborate gestures. I observed that individ- 
ual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in con- 
versation with one another, and when ignorant of the 
fact that I was observing them, the articulate words just 
learned, although these were scarcely intelligible, to their 
own signs. 

Thus mighty is the charm of the spoken word, even 
when the child does not himself hear it, but merely feels 
it with his tongue. 

But the schooling the deaf-mute must go through in 
order to become acquainted with the sensations of sight, 
touch, and movement that go with the sound, is un- 
speakably toilsome. 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 29 

"W". Glide says in his treatise, remarkable alike for 
acuteness and clearness, "Principles and Outlines of 
the Exposition of a Scheme of Instruction for an Insti- 
tution for Deaf- Mutes " (" Grundsatze und Grundziige 
zur Auf stellung eines Lehrplans f iir eine Taubstummen- 
Anstalt," 1381) : " The utterances of tones and of ar- 
ticulate sounds called forth by involuntary stimulus 
during the first years, in deaf-mutes, are such unimpor- 
tant motor phenomena that they are not immediately fol- 
lowed by a motor sensation. But when the deaf-mute 
child is more awake mentally, he perceives that his rela- 
tives make movements of the mouth in their intercourse, 
and repeated attempts of those about him to make 
themselves intelligible by pronouncing certain words to 
him are not entirely without effect upon the deaf-mute 
that is intellectually active. When such deaf-mutes 
now direct their attention to the matter, they succeed 
in regard to only a part of the sounds — those that are 
conspicuous to the eye in their utterance — in getting a 
tolerable imitation. Individual deaf-mutes go so far, in 
fact, as to understand various words correctly without 
repeating them ; others succeed gradually in repeating 
such words as c papa, mamma,' so that one can understand 
what is meant. Those who are deaf-mutes from birth 
do not, however, of themselves, succeed in imitating 
accurately other vocal sounds in general." 

A deaf-mute, who had not been instructed, explained 
to Romanes, at a later period when he had learned the 
sign-language, that he had before thought in " images," 
which means nothing else than that he, in place of the 
words heard (in our case) and the digital signs seen (in 
his case), had made use of memory-images gained from 



30 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

visual impressions, for distinguishing his concepts., 
Laura Bridgman, too, a person in general the subject of 
very incorrect inferences, who was not blind and deaf 
from birth, could form a small number of concepts that 
were above the lowest grade. These originated from 
the materials furnished by the sense of touch, the mus- 
cular sense and general sensibility, before she had learned 
a sort of finger-language. But she had learned to speak 
somewhat before she became dumb and blind. Children 
with sight, born deaf, seem not to be able to perform 
the simplest arithmetical operations, e. g., 214 — 96 and 
908x70 (according to Asch, 1865), until after several 
years of continuous instruction in articulate speaking. 
They do succeed, however, and that without sound- 
images of words, and perhaps, too, without sight-images 
of words ; in mental arithmetic without knowledge of 
written figures, by help of the touch-images of words 
which the tongue furnishes. 

In any case uneducated persons born deaf can count 
by means of the fingers without the knowledge of fig- 
ures ; and, when they go beyond 10, the notched stick 
comes to their aid (Sicard and Degerando). 

The language of gesture and feature in very young 
children, born dumb and not treated differently from 
other children, shows also, in most abundant measure, 
that concepts are formed without words. The child 
born deaf uses the primitive language of gesture to the 
same extent as does the child that has his hearing ; the 
former makes himself intelligible by actions and sounds 
as the latter does, so that his deficiency is not suspected. 
This natural language is also understood by the child 
born deaf, so far as it is recognizable by his eye. In 



THINKING WITHOUT WORDS. 31 

the look and the features of his mother he reads her 
mood. But he very early becomes quiet and develops 
for himself, " out of unconscious gesticulation, the gest- 
ure language, which at first is not conventional, nay, 
is not in the - strict sense quite a sign-language, but a 
mimetic-plastic representation of the influences experi- 
enced from the external world," since the deaf-mute 
imitates movements perceived, and the attitude of per- 
sons and the position of objects. Upon this pantomime 
alone rests the possibility of coming to an understanding, 
within a certain range, with deaf-mutes that have had 
no instruction at all. It can not, therefore, in its ele- 
mentary form be conventional, as Hill, to whom I owe 
these data, rightly maintains. He writes concerning the 
child born deaf : " His voice seems just like that of other 
children. He screams, weeps, according as he feels un- 
comfortable ; he starts when frightened by any noise. 
Even friendly address, toying, fun, serious threats, are 
understood by him as early as by any child." But he 
does not hear his own voice ; it is not sound that fright- 
ens him, but the concussion ; it is not the pleasant word 
that delights him, but the pleasant countenance of his 
mother. " It even happens, not seldom, that through 
encouragement to use the voice, these children acquire a 
series of articulate sounds, and a number of combina- 
tions of sounds, which they employ as the expression 
of their wishes." They not only point out the object 
desired, not only imitate movements that are to procure 
what they want, but they also outline the forms of ob- 
jects wished for. They are able to conduct themselves 
so intelligently in this, that the deaf-mute condition is 
not discovered till the second year, or even later, and 



32 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

then chiefly by their use of the eye, because in case of 
distant objects only those seen excite their attention. 

From this behavior of infants born deaf it manifest- 
ly follows that even without the possibility of natural 
imitation of sounds, and without the knowledge of a 
single word, qualities may be blended with qualities into 
concepts. Thus, primitive thinking is not bound up 
with verbal language. It demands, however, a certain 
development of the cerebrum, probably a certain very 
considerable number of ganglionic cells in the cerebral 
cortex, that stand in firm organic connection with one 
another. The difference between an uninstructed young 
deaf-mute and a cretin is immense. The former can 
learn a great deal through instruction in speaking, the 
latter can not. This very ability to learn, in the child 
born deaf, is greater than in the normal child, in respect 
to pantomime and gesture. If a child with his hearing 
had to grow up among deaf-mutes, he would undoubted- 
ly learn their language, and would in addition enjoy his 
own voice without being able to make use of it ; but he 
would probably be discovered, further on, without test- 
ing his hearing, by the fact that he was not quite so 
complete a master of this gesture-language as the deaf- 
mutes, on account of the diversion of his attention by 
sound. 

The total result of the foregoing observations con- 
cerning the capacity of accomplishment on the part of 
uneducated deaf-mutes in regard to the natural language 
of gesture and feature, demonstrates more plainly than 
any other fact whatever that, without words and with- 
out signs for words, thought-activity exists — that think- 
ing takes place when both words and signs for words 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 33 

are wanting. "Wherefore, then, should the logical com- 
bination of ideas in the human being born perfect begin 
only with the speaking of words or the learning to 
speak ?' Because the adult supposes that he no longer 
thinks without words, he easily draws the erroneous 
conclusion that no one, that not even he himself, could 
think before the knowledge of verbal language. In 
truth, however, it was not language that generated the 
intellect y it is the intellect that formerly invented lan- 
guage : and even now the new-horn human oeing orings 
with him into the world far more intellect than talent 
for language. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 



a 



No human being remembers how he learned his 
mother-tongue in early youth, and the whole human 
race has forgotten the origin of its articulate speech as 
well as of its gestures ; but every individual passes per- 
ceptibly through the stage of learning to speak, so that 
a patient observer recognizes much as conformable to 
law^ 

1 The acquisition of speech belongs to those physio- 
logical problems which can not be solved by the most 
important means possessed by physiology, vivisection. 
And the speechless condition in which every human 
being is born can not be regarded as a disease that may 
be healed by instruction, as is the case with certain 
forms of acquired aphasia. A set of other accomplish- 
ments, such as swimming, riding, fencing, piano-play- 



34 TIIE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ing, the acquirement of which is physiological, are 
learned like articulate speech, and nobody calls the 
person that can not swim an anomaly on that account. 
The inability to appropriate to one's self these and 
other co-ordinated muscular movements, this alone is 
abnormal. But we can not tell in advance in the case 
of any new-born child whether he will learn to speak or 
not, just as in the case of one who has suffered an ob- 
struction of speech or has entirely lost speech, it is not 
certain whether he will ever recover it. 

In this the normal child that does not yet speak per- 
fectly, resembles the diseased adult who, for any cause, 
no longer has command of language. And to compare 
these two with each other is the more important, as at 
present no other empirical way is open to us for inves- 
tigating the nature of the process of learning to speak ; 
but this way conducts us, fortunately, through pathology, 
to solid, important physiological conclusions. 

1. Disturbances of Speech in Adults. 

The command of language comprises, on the one 
hand, the understanding of what is spoken ; on the other 
hand, the utterance of what is thought. It is at the 
height of its performance in free, intelligible, connected 
speech. Everything that disturbs the understanding 
of words heard must be designated disturbance of speech 
equally with everything that disturbs the product ion of 
words and sentences. 

By means of excellent investigations made by many 
persons, especially by Broca, Wernicke, Kussmaul, it 
has become possible to make a topical division of most 
of the observed disturbances of speech of both kinds. 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 35 

In the first class, which comprises the impressive pro- 
cesses, we have to consider every functional disturbance 
of the peripheral ear, of the auditory nerve and of the 
central ends of the auditory nerve ; in the second class, 
viz., the expressive processes, we consider every func- 
tional disturbance of the apparatus required for articu- 
lation, including the nerves belonging to this in their 
whole extent, in particular the hypoglossals, as motor 
nerve of the tongue, and certain parts of the cerebral 
hemispheres from which the nerves of speech are ex- 
cited and to which the sense-impressions from without 
are so conducted by connecting fibers that they them- 
selves or their memory-images can 
call forth expressive, i. e., motor 
processes. The diagram, Fig. 1, 
illustrates the matter. 

The peripheral ear o, with the 
terminations of the auditory nerve, 
is by means of sensory fibers a, that 
are connected with the auditory F t 

nerve, in connection with the store- 
house of sound-impressions, K. This io connected by 
means of the intercentral paths v with the motor speech- 
center M. From it go out special fibers of communica- 
tion, h, to the motor nerves of speech which terminate 
in the external instruments of articulation, z. 

The impressive nerve-path, o a K, is centripetal ; the 
expressive, M h 2, centrifugal ; v, intercentral. 

When the normal child learns to speak, receives 
the sound-impressions ; by a the acoustic-nerve excita- 
tions are passed along to K, and are here stored up, every 
distinctly heard sound (a tone, a syllable, a word) leav- 




36 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ing an impression behind in K. It is very remarkable 
here that, among the many sounds and noises that impress 
themselves upon the portions of the brain directly con- 
nected with the auditory nerve, a selection is made in 
the sound-field of speech, K, since all those impressions 
that can be reproduced, among them all the acoustic 
images necessary for speech, are preserved, but many 
others are not, e. g., thunder, crackling. Memory is in- 
distinct with regard to these. From K, when the 
sound-images or sound-impressions have become suffi- 
ciently strong and numerous, the nerve-excitement goes 
farther through the connecting paths v to M, where it 
liberates motor impulses, and through h sets in activity 
the peripheral apparatus of speech, z. 

Now, speech is disturbed when at any point the path 
o z is interrupted, or the excitation conducted along the 
nerve-fibers and ganglionic cells upon the hearing of 
something spoken or upon the speaking of something 
represented in idea (heard inwardly) is arrested, a thing 
which may be effected without a total interruption of 
the conduction, e. g., by means of poison and through 
anatomical lesions. 

On the basis of these physiological relations, about 
which there is no doubt, T divide, then, all pure disturb- 
ances of speech, or lalopathies, into three classes : 

(1) Peripliero-Impressive or Perceptive Disturbances. 
The organ of hearing is injured at its peripheral ex- 
tremity, or else the acusticus in its course ; then occurs 
difficulty of hearing or deafness. "What is spoken is 
not correctly heard or not heard at all : the utterance is 
correct only in case the lesion happened late. If it is 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 37 

inborn, then this lack of speech, alalia, is called deaf- 
mutism, although the so-called deaf and dumb are not 
in reality dumb, but only deaf. If words spoken are in- 
correctly heard on account of acquired defects of the 
peripheral ear, the patient mis-hears, and the abnormal 
condition is called paracusis. 

(2) Central Disturbances. 

a. The higher impressive central paths are dis- 
turbed : centro-sensory dysphasia and aphasia, or word- 
deafness. Words are heard but not understood. The 
hearing is acute. " Patients may have perfectly correct 
ideas, but they lack the correct expression for them ; 
not the thoughts but the words are confused. They 
would understand the ideas of others also if they only 
understood the words. They are in the position of per- 
sons suddenly transported into the midst of a people 
using the same sounds but different words, which strike 
upon their ear like an unintelligible noise." (Kuss- 
maul.) Their articulation is without defect, but what 
they say is unintelligible because the words are mutilated 
and used wrongly. C. Wernicke discovered this form, 
and has separated it sharply from other disturbances of 
speech. He designated it sensory aphasia. Kussmaul 
later named this abnormal condition word-deafness 
(sarditas verbalis). 

h. The connections between the impressive sound- 
centers and the motor speech-center are injured. Then 
we have intercentral conductive dysphasia and aphasia, 
"What is spoken is heard and understood correctly even 
when v is completely interrupted. The articulation is 
not disturbed, and yet the patient utters no word of 



38 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

himself. He can, however, read aloud what is written. 
(Kussmaul.) The word that has just been read aloud 
by the patient can not be repeated by him, neither can 
the word that has been pronounced to him ; and, not- 
withstanding this, he reads aloud with perfect correct- 
ness. In this case, then, it is impossible for the patient 
of his own motion, even if the memory of the words 
heard were not lost, to set in activity the expressive 
mechanism of speech, although it might remain unin- 
jured. 

c. The motor speech-center is injured. Then we 
have centro-motor dysphasia and aphasia. If the center 
is completely and exclusively disturbed, then it is a case 
of pure ataxic aphasia. Spontaneous speaking, saying 
over of words said by another, and reading aloud of 
writing, are impossible. (Kussmaul.) On the other 
hand, words heard are understood, although the con- 
cepts belonging with them can not be expressed aloud. 
The verbal memory remains ; and the patient can still 
express his thoughts in writing and can copy in writing 
what he reads or what is dictated to him. 

(3) Periphero-Expressive or Articulatory Disturbances. 

The centrifugal paths from the motor speech-center 
to the motor nerves of speech and to their extremities, 
or else these nerves themselves, are injured. Then oc- 
curs dysarthria, and, if the path is totally impassable at 
any place, cmarthria. The hearing and understanding 
of words are not hindered, but speaking, repeating the 
words of others, and reading aloud are, as in the last 
case (2, c), impossible. In general this form can not be 
distinguished from the foregoing when both are devel- 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 39 

oped in an extreme degree, except in cases of periph- 
eral dysarthria, i. e., dyslalia, since, as may be easily 
understood, it makes no difference in the resulting phe- 
nomena whether the motor center itself is extirpated or 
its connections with the motor outlet are absolutely cut 
oft' just where the latter begins ; but if this latter is in- 
jured nearer to the periphery, e. g., if the hypoglossus 
is paralyzed, then the phenomena are different (par- 
alalia, mogilalia). Here belongs all so-called mechanical 
dyslalia, caused by defects of the peripheral speech-ap- 
paratus. 

Of these live forms each occurs generally only in 
connection with another ; for this reason the topical diag- 
nosis also is often extraordinarily difficult. But enough 
cases have been accurately observed and collected to 
put it almost beyond a doubt that each form may also 
appear for a short time purely by itself. To be sure, 
the anatomical localization of the impressive and ex- 
pressive paths is not yet ascertained, so that for the 
present the centripetal roads from the acusticus to the 
motor speech-center, and the intercentral fibers that 
run to the higher centers, are as much unknown as the 
centrifugal paths leading from them to the nuclei of the 
hypoglossus ; but that the speech-center discovered by 
Broca is situated in the posterior portion of the third 
frontal convolution (in right-handed men on the left, in 
left-handed on the right) is universally acknowledged. 

Further, it results from the abundance of clinical 
material, that the acoustic-center K must be divided 
into a sound-center L, a syllable-center S, a word-center 
W, each of which may be in itself defective, for cases 
have been observed in which sounds were still recog- 



40 



THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. 



nized and reproduced, but not syllables and words, also 
cases in which sounds and syllables could be dealt with 
but no words ; and, finally, cases in which all these were 
wanting. The original diagram is thereby considerably 
complicated, as the simple path of connection between 
K and M has added to it the arcs L S M and L S W 
M (Fig. 2). 

The surest test of the perfect condition of all the 
segments is afforded by the repetition of sounds, sylla- 
bles, and words pronounced by others. 




Fig. 2. 



Syllables and sounds, but no words, can be pro- 
nounced if W is missing or the path S ¥ or ¥ 1 is 
interrupted ; no syllables if S is missing or L S or S M 
is interrupted. If L is missing, then nothing can be re- 
peated from hearing. If L M is interrupted, then sylla- 
bles and words are more easily repeated than simple 
sounds, so far as the latter are not syllables. If L S is 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 41 

interrupted, then simple sounds only can be repeated. 
All these abnormal states have been actually observed. 
The proofs are to be found in Kussmaui's classic work 
on the disturbances of speech (1877). Even the 
strange case appears in which, L M being imprac- 
ticable, syllables are more easily repeated than simple 
sounds. 

If a is interrupted before the acquirement of speech, 
and thus chronic deafness is present in very early child- 
hood, articulation may still be learned through visual 
and tactile impressions ; but in this case the sound-cen- 
ter L is not developed. Another, a sound-touch-center, 
comes in its place in deaf-mutes when they are in- 
structed, chiefly through the tactile sensations of the 
tongue ; and, when they are instructed in reading (and 
writing), a sound- sight- (or letter) center. This last is, 
on the contrary, wanting to those born blind ; and both 
are wanting to those born blind and deaf. Instead is 
formed in them through careful instruction, by means 
of the tactile sensations of the finger-tips, a center for 
signs of sound that are known by touch (as with the 
printed text for the blind). 

Accordingly, the eye and ear are not absolutely in- 
dispensable to the acquirement of a verbal language; 
but for the thorough learning of the verbal language in 
its entire significance both are by all means indispensa- 
ble. For, the person born blind does not get the sig- 
nificance of words pertaining to light and color. For 
him, therefore, a large class of conceptions, an extensive 
portion of the vocabulary of his language, remains 
empty sound. To the one born deaf there is likewise 
an extensive district of conceptions closed, inasmuch as 



42 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

all words pertaining to tone and noise remain unintel- 
ligible to him. 

Moreover, those born blind and deaf, or those born 
blind and becoming deaf very early, or those born deaf 
and becoming blind very early, though they may possess 
ever so good intelligence, and perhaps even learn to 
write letters, as did the famous Laura Bridgman, will 
invariably understand only a small part of the vocabu- 
lary of their language, and will not articulate cor- 
rectly. 

Those born deaf are precisely the ones that show 
plainly how necessary hearing is for the acquirement of 
perfectly articulate speech. One who is deaf from birth 
does not even learn to speak half a dozen sounds cor- 
rectly without assistance, and the loss of speech that 
regularly follows deafness coming on in children who 
have already learned to speak, shows how inseparably 
the learning and the development of perfect articula- 
tion are bound up with the hearing. Even the deafness 
that comes on in maturer years injures essentially the 
agreeable tone, often also the intelligibility, of the ut- 
terance. 

2. The Organic Conditions of Learning to Speak. 

How is it, now, with the normal child, who is learn- 
ing to speak ? How is it as to the existence and practi- 
cability of the nervous conduction, and the genesis of 
the centers ? 

In order to decide these questions, a further exten- 
sion of the diagram is necessary (Fig. 3). 

For the last diagram deals only with the hearing 
and pronouncing of sounds, syllables, and single words, 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 



43 



not with the grammatical formation and syntactical 
grouping of these ; there must further be a center of 
higher rank, the dictorium, or center of diction (Kuss- 
maul), brought into connection with the centers L S and 
W. And, on the one hand, the word-image acquired 




Fig. 3. 

(by hearing) must be at the disposition of the diction- 
center, an excitation, therefore, passing from W to D 
(through m); on the other hand, an impulse must go 
out from the diction-center to pronounce the word that 
is formed and placed so as to correspond to the sense 
(through n). The same is true for syllables and sounds, 
whose paths to and from are indicated by Jc and I, as 
well as by g and i. These paths of connection must be 
of twofold sort. The excitement can not pass off to the 



u 



THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 



diction-center D on the same anatomical path as the 
return impulse from D, because not a single case is 
known of a nerve-fiber that in natural relations conducts 
both centrif ugally and centripetally, although this possi- 
bility of double conduction does occur under artificial cir- 
cumstances. Apart, then, from pathological experience, 
which seems to be in favor of it, the separation of the 
two directions of the excitement seems to be justified 
anatomically also. On the contrary, it is questionable 




whether the impulse proceeding from D does not arrive 
directly at the motor speech-center, instead of passing 
through W, S, or L. The diagram then represents it as 
follows (Fig. 4). Here the paths of direct connection 
i, I, and n from D to M represent that which was just 



LEARNING TO .SPEAK. 45 

now represented by i L d and I S e and n Wf, respect- 
ively ; in Fig. 4, * conducts only sound-excitations com- 
ing from L, I only excitations coming from S, and n 
only those coming from W, as impulses for M. For 
the present, I see no way of deciding between the two 
possibilities. They may even exist both together. All 
the following statements concerning the localization of 
the disturbances of speech and the parallel imperfections 
of child-speech apply indifferently to either figure ; it 
should be borne in mind that the nerve-excitement al- 
ways goes only in the direction of the arrows, never in the 
opposite direction, through. -the nervous path correspond- 
ing to them. Such a parallel is not only presented, 
as I have found, and as I will show in what follows, by 
the most superficial exhibition of the manifold devia- 
tions of child-speech from the later perfect speech, 
but is, above all, necessary for the answering of the 
question : what is the condition of things in learning 
to speak? 

3. Parallel between the Disturbances of Speech in Adults and the 
Imperfections of Speech in the Child. 

In undertaking to draw such a parallel, I must first 
of all state that in regard to the pathology of the subject, 
I have not much experience of my own, and therefore 
I rely here upon K/assmaul's comprehensive work on 
speech- disturbances, from which are taken most of the 
data that serve to characterize the individual deviations 
from the rule. In that work also may be found the ex- 
planations, or precise definitions, of almost all the names 
— with the exception of the following, added here for 
the sake of brevity — skoliophasia, skoliophrasia, and pa- 



46 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

limphrasia. On the other hand, the statements con- 
cerning the speech of the child rest on my own obser- 
vations of children — especially of my own son — and 
readers who give their attention to little children 
may verify them all ; most of them, indeed, with ease. 
Only the examples added for explaining mogilalia and 
paralalia are taken in part from Sigismund, a few others 
from Yierordt. They show more plainly (at least con- 
cerning rhotacism) than my own notes, some imperfec- 
tions of articulation of the child in the second year, 
which occur, however, only in single individuals. In 
general the defects of child-speech are found to be very 
unequally distributed among different ages and individ- 
uals, so that we can hardly expect to find all the speech- 
disturbances of adults manifested in typical fashion in 
one and the same child. But with very careful obser- 
vation it may be done, notwithstanding ; and when sev- 
eral children are compared with one another in this 
respect, the analogies fairly force themselves upon the 
observer, and there is no break anywhere. 

The whole group into which I have tried to bring 
in organic connection all the kinds of disturbances and 
defects of speech in systematic form falls into three di- 
visions : 

1. Imperfections not occasioned by disturbance of 
the intelligence — pure speech-disturbances or lalopa- 
thies. 

2. Imperfections occasioned solely by disturbances 
of the intelligence — disturbances of continuous speech 
or discourse (Rede) — dysphrasies. 

3. Imperfections of the language of gesture and 
feature — clysmimies. 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 47 

I. LALOPATHY. 
A. The Impressive Peripheral Processes disturbed. 

Deafness. — Persons able to speak but who bare be- 
come deaf do not understand what is spoken simply be- 
cause they can no longer hear. The newly born do not 
understand what is spoken because they can not yet 
hear. The paths o and a are not yet practicable. All 
those just born are deaf and dumb. 

Difficulty of Hearing. — Persons who have become 
hard of hearing do not understand what is spoken, or 
they misunderstand, because they no longer hear dis- 
tinctly. Such individuals easily hear wrong (paracusis). 

Very young infants do not understand what is 
spoken, for the reason that they do not yet hear distinct- 
ly ; o and a are still difficult for the acoustic nerve-ex- 
citement to traverse. Little children very easily hear 
wrong on this account. 

33. The Central Processes disturbed. 

Dysphasia. — In the child that can use only a small 
number of words, the cerebral and psychical act through 
which he connects these with his ideas and gives them 
grammatical form and syntactical construction in order 
to express the movement of his thought is not yet com- 
plete. 

(1) The Sensory Processes centrally disturbed. 

Sensory Aphasia (Wernicke), Word - Deaf ness 
(Kussmaul). — The child, in spite of good hearing and 
sufficiently developed intelligence, can not yet under- 
stand spoken words because the path m is not yet 



48 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

formed and the storehouse of word-images W is still 
empty or is just in the stage of origination. 

Amnesia, Amnesic Dysphasia and Aphasia, Par- 
tial and Total Word-Amnesia, Memory- Aphasia. — 
The child has as yet no word-memory, or only a weak 
one, utters meaningless sounds and sound-combinations. 
He can not yet use words because he does not yet have 
them at his disposal as acoustic sound-combinations. In 
this stage, however, much that is said to him can be re- 
peated correctly in case "W" is passable, though empty or 
imperfectly developed. 

(2) The Sensori-motor Processes of Diction disturbed. 

Acataphasia (Steinthal). — The child that has al- 
ready a considerable number of words at his disposal is 
not yet in condition to arrange them in a sentence syn- 
tactically. He can not yet frame correct sentences to 
express the movement of his thought, because his dic- 
tion-center D is still imperfectly developed. He ex- 
presses a whole sentence by a word ; e. g., hot! means as 
much as " The milk is too hot for me to drink," and 
then again it may mean " The stove is too hot ! " Man ! 
means " A strange man has come ! " 

Dysgrammatism (Kussmaul) and Agrammatism 
(Steinthal). — Children can not yet put words into correct 
grammatical form, decline, or conjugate. They like to use 
the indefinite noun-substantive and the infinitive, like- 
wise to some extent the past participle. They prefer the 
weak inflection, ignore and confound the articles, conjunc- 
tions, auxiliaries, prepositions, and pronouns. In place 
of " I " they say their own names, also tint (for " Kind " 
— child or "baby"). Instead of "Du, er, Sie" (thou, 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 49 

he, you), they use proper names, or man, papa, mamma. 
Sometimes, too, the adjectives are placed after the nouns, 
and the meaning of words is indicated by their position 
with reference to others, by the intonation, by looks 
and gestures. Agrammatism in child-language always 
appears in company with acataphasia, often also in in- 
sane persons. When the imbecile Tony says, " Tony 
flowers taken, attendant come, Tony whipped " (Tony 
Blumen genommen, Warterin gekommen, Tony ge- 
haut), she speaks exactly like a child (Kussmaul), with- 
out articles, pronouns, or auxiliary verbs, and, like the 
child, uses the weak inflection. The connection m of 
the word-image-center W with the diction-center D, 
i. e., of the word-memory with grammar, and the cen- 
ters themselves, are as yet very imperfectly developed, 
unused. 

Bradyphasia. — Children that can already frame 
sentences take a surprising amount of time in speaking 
on account of the slowness of their diction. In D and 
W m in the cerebral cortex the hindrances are still great 
because of too slight practice. 

(3) The Motor Processes centrally disturbed. 

a. Centro-moior Dysphasia and Aphasia, Aphe- 
mia, Asyinbolia, Asemia. — Children have not yet 
learned, or have hardly learned, the use of language, 
although their intelligence is already sufficient. There 
is no longer any deficiency in the development of the 
external organs of speech, no muscular weakness, no im- 
perfection of the nervous structures that effect the ar- 
ticulation of the separate sounds, for intelligence shows 
itself in the child's actions; he forms the separate 



50 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

sounds correctly, unintentionally ; his hearing is good 
and the sensory word-memory is present, since the child 
already obeys. His not yet speaking at this period 
(commonly as late as the second year) must accordingly 
be essentially of centro-motor character. 

In the various forms of this condition there is in- 
jury or lack of sufficient relative development either in 
the centro-motorium M or in the paths that lead into it, 
d, e, f, as well as i, I, n. 

a. Central Dysarthria and Anarthria. — In the 
child at the stage of development just indicated articula- 
tion is not yet perfect, inasmuch as while he often unin- 
tentionally pronounces correctly sounds, syllables, and 
single words, yet he can not form these intentionally, 
although he hears and understands them aright. He 
makes use of gestures. 

Ataxic Aphasia {Verbal Anarthria). — The child 
that already understands several words as sound-combi- 
nations and retains them (since he obeys), can not yet 
use these in speech because he has not yet the requisite 
centro-motor impulses. He forms correctly the few 
syllables he has already learned of his future language, 
i. e., those he has at the time in memory as sound- 
combinations (sensory), but can not yet group them 
into new words ; e. g., he says hi and te correctly, 
learns also to say "bitte" but not yet at this period 
"tibe," "tebi." He lacks still the motor co-ordination 
of words. 

At this period the gesture-language and modulation 
of voice of the child are generally easy to understand, 
as in case of pure ataxic aphasia (the verbal asemia or 
asymbolia of Finkelnburg) are the looks and gestures 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 51 

of aphasie adults. Chiefly n, f, and M are as yet im- 
perfectly developed. 

Central Stammering and Lisping {Literal Dysar- 
thria). — Children just beginning to form sentences stam- 
mer, not uttering the sounds correctly. They also, as a 
rule, lisp for a considerable time, so that the words 
spoken by them are still indistinct and are intelligible 
only to the persons most intimately associated with 
them. 

The paths d and i, and consequently the centro-mo- 
torium M, come chiefly into consideration here ; but L 
also is concerned, so far as from it comes the motor im- 
pulse to make a sound audible through M. 

The babbling of the infant is not to be confounded 
with this. That imports merely the unintentional pro- 
duction of single disconnected articulate sounds with 
non-coordinated movements of the tongue on account 
of uncontrolled excitement of the nerves of the tongue. 

Stuttering {Syllabic Dysarthria). — Stutterers articu- 
late each separate sound correctly, but connect the conso- 
nants, especially the explosive sounds, with the succeed- 
ing vowels badly, with effort as if an obstacle were to be 
overcome. The paths i and I are affected, and hence M 
is not properly excited. S, too, conies nnder considera- 
tion in the case of stuttering, so far as impulses go out 
from it for the pronunciation of the syllables. 

Children who can not yet speak of themselves hut 
can repeat what is said for them, exert themselves un- 
necessarily, making a strong expiratory effort (with the 
help of abdominal pressure) to repeat a syllable still un- 
familiar, and they pause between the doubled or tripled 
consonant and vowel. This peculiarity, which soon 



52 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

passes away and is to be traced often to the lack of 
practice and to embarrassment (in case of threats), and 
which may be observed occasionally in every child, is 
stuttering proper, although it appears more seldom than 
in stutterers. Example : The child of two years is to 
say " Tischdecke," and he begins with an unnecessary 
expiratory effort, T-t-itt-t, and does not finish. 

Stuttering is by no means a physiological transition- 
stage through which every child learning to speak 
must necessarily pass. But it is easily acquired, in 
learning to speak, by imitation of stutterers, in frequent 
intercourse with them. Hence, stutterers have some- 
times stuttering children. 

/3. Stumbling at Syllables. — Children that already 
articulate correctly separate sounds, and do so inten- 
tionally, very often put together syllables out of the 
sounds incorrectly, and frame words incorrectly from 
the syllables, where we can not assume deficient develop- 
ment of the external organs of speech ; this is solely be- 
cause the co-ordination is still imperfect. The child ac- 
cordingly says beti before he can say bitte j so too gre- 
fessen instead of gefressen. 

The tracts I and n are still incompletely developed ; 
also S and W, so far as impulses come thence to utter 
syllables by means of M. 

b. Paraphasia. — Children have learned some ex- 
pressions in their future language, and use them inde- 
pendently but wrongly ; they put in the place of the 
appropriate word an incorrect one, confounding words 
because they can not yet correctly combine their ideas 
with the word-images. They say, e. g., Kind instead of 
" Kinn," and Sand instead of " Salz " ; also Netz for 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 53 

"Nest" and Billard for " Billet," Matrons f or " Pa- 
trone." 

The connection of D with M through n is still im- 
perfect, and perhaps also M is not sufficiently developed. 

Making Mistakes in Speaking (Skoliophasia). — In 
this kind of paraphasia in adults the cause is a lack of 
attention ; therefore purely central concentration is 
wanting, or one fails to " collect himself " ; there is dis- 
traction, hence the unintentional, frequently uncon- 
scious, confounding of words similar in sound or con- 
nected merely by remote, often dim, reminiscences. 
This kind of mis-speaking through carelessness is dis- 
tinguished from skoliophrasia (see below) by the fact 
that there is no disturbance of the intelligence, and the 
correction easily follows. 

Skoliophasia occurs regularly with children in the 
second and third years (and later). The child in gen- 
eral has not yet the ability to concentrate his attention 
upon that which is to be spoken. He wills to do it but 
can not yet. Hence, even in spite of the greatest effort, 
occur often erroneous repetitions of words pronounced 
for him (aside from difficulties of articulation, and also 
when these are wanting) ; hence confounding (of words), 
wrong forms of address, e. g., Mama or Helens instead 
of " Papa," and Papa instead of " Marie." 

c. Taciturnity (Dumbness). — Individual human be- 
ings of sound physical condition who can speak very well 
are dumb, or speak only two or three words in all for 
several years, because they no longer will to speak (e. g. ? 
in the belief that silence prevents them from doing 
wrong). 

This taciturnity is not to be confounded with the 
1 



54: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

paranoic aphrasia in certain insane persons — e. g., in 
catatonia, where the will is paralyzed. 

It also occurs — seldom, however — that children who 
have already learned to speak pretty well are dumb, or 
speak only a few words — among these the word no — 
during several months, or speak only with certain per- 
sons, because they will not speak (out of obstinacy, or 
embarrassment). Here an organic obstacle in the motor 
speech-center is probable. For voluntary dumbness re- 
quires great strength of will, which is hardly to be at- 
tributed to the child. The unwillingness to speak that 
is prompted by fun never lasts long. 

C. The Expressive Peripheral Processes dis- 
turbed. 

(1) By si alia and Alalia (Peripheral Dysarthria and Anarthria). 

The infant can not yet articulate correctly, or at all, 
on account of the still deficient development, and after- 
ward the lack of control, of the nerves of speech and 
the external organs of speech. The complete inability 
to articulate is called alalia. The newly born is alalic. 
Dyslalia continues with many children a long time even 
after the learning of the mother-tongue. This is always 
a case simply of imperfections in h and 2. 

. a. BnZbo-nuclear Stammering {Literal Balbo-nib- 
clear Dysarthria and Anarthria). — Patients who have 
lost control over the muscles of speech through bulbo-nu- 
clear paralysis, stammer before they become speechless, 
and along with paralysis and atrophy of the tongue oc- 
cur regularly fibrillar contractions of the muscles of the 
tongue. The tongue is no longer regulated by the will. 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 55 

The child that has not yet gained control over his 
vocal muscles stammers before he can speak correctly, 
and, according to my observations, regularly shows 
fibrillar contractions of the muscles of the tongue along 
with an extraordinary mobility of the tongue. The 
tongue is not yet regulated by the will. Its movements 
are aimless. 

o. Mogilalia. — Children, on account of the as yet 
deficient control of the external organs of speech, es- 
pecially of the tongue, can not yet form some sounds, 
and therefore omit them. They say, e. g., in for 
" bin," atz for " Herz," eitun for " Zeitung," ere for 
"Schere." 

Gammaeism. — Children find difficulties in the vol- 
untary utterance of K and Ks (x), and indeed of G, and 
therefore often omit these sounds without substituting 
others ; they say, e. g , atsen for " Klatschen," atten for 
" Garten," asse for " Gasse," all for " Karl," ete for 
" Grete " (in the second year), wesen for " gewesen," 
<^/for"Kopf." 

Sigmatism. — All children are late in learning to pro- 
nounce correctly S, and generally still later with Sch, 
and therefore omit both, or in a lisping fashion put S in 
place of Sch ; more rarely Sch in place of S. They say, 
e. g., saf in place of "Schaf," int for "singt," anz 
for " Salz," lafen and slafen for "schlafen," iss for 
" Hirsch," jpitte for " Splitter," tod for " Stuhl," wein 
for " Sch wein," Tuttav for " Gustav," torch for " Storeh" 
(second year), emele for " Schemel," webenau for " Fle- 
dermaus," but also Kitsch for " Kuss." But in no case 
have I myself heard a child regularly put "sch" in 
place of s, as Joschef for " Josef." This form, perhaps, 



56 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

occurs in Jewish families; but I have no further ob- 
servations concerning it as jet. 

Photacism. — Many children do not form R at all 
for a long time and put nothing in place of it. They 
say duch for " dureh," hot for " Brot," unte for " herun- 
ter," tautech for " traurig," ule for " Ruhe," tanen for 
" Thranen," ukTca for " Zucker." On the contrary, 
some form early the R lingual, guttural, and labial, but 
all confound now and then the first two with each 
other. 

Pambdacism. — Many children are late in learning 
to utter L, and often omit it. They say, e. g., icht for 
" Licht," voge for " Yogel," atenne for " Laterne," batn 
for " Blatt," mante for " Mantel." 

(2) Literal Parartkria or Paralalia. 

Children who are beginning to repeat intention- 
ally what is said, often put another sound in place 
of the well-known correct (no doubt intended) one ; 
this on account of deficient control of the tongue or 
other peripheral organs of speech. E. g., they say t in 
place of p, or b for w (basse for " Wasser " and for 
" Flasche "), e for i and o for u, as in bete for " bitte," 
and Ohr for " Uhr." 

Paragammacism. — Children supply the place of 
the insuperably difficult sounds G, K, X by others, es- 
pecially D and T, also 1ST, saying, e. g., itte for " Rike," 
finne for " Finger," tein for " Klein," toss for " gross," 
atitte for " Karnickel," otute for " Kuk," attall for 
" Axel," wodal for " Yogel," tut for " gut," tatze for 
"Katze." 

Parasigmatism. — Children are late in learning to 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 57 

utter S and Sch correctly. They often snpply the place 
of them, before acquiring them, by other sounds, saying, 
e. g., tule for " Schule," ade for " Hase," webbe for 
" "Wasser," beb for " bos," bebe for " Besen," gigod for 
" Schildkrote," baubee for " Schwalbe." 

Pararhotacism. — Most children, if not all, even 
when they have very early formed R. correctly (invol- 
untarily), introduce other sounds in place of it in speak- 
ing — e. g., they say moigjen for " morgen," matta for 
" Martha," annold for " Arnold," jeiben for " reiben," 
amum for " warum," welfen for " werfen." 

Paralambdacism. — Many children who do not learn 
until late to utter L put in its place other sounds ; say- 
ing, e. g., bind for " Bild," bamjpe for " Lampe," tinne 
for " stille," degen for " legen," wewe for " Lowe," 
ewebau for " Elephant." 

(3) Bradylalia or Bradyarthria. 

I Children reciting for the first time something 
learned by heart speak not always indistinctly, but, on 
account of the incomplete practicability of the motor- 
paths, slowly, monotonously, without modulation. 
Sounds and syllables do not yet follow one another 
quickly, although they are already formed correctly. 
The syllables belonging to a word are often separated 
by pauses like the words themselves — a sort of dyspha- 
sia-of-conduction on account of the more difficult and 
prolonged conduction of the motor-impulse. I knew a 
boy (feeble-minded, to be sure) who took from three to 
eight seconds for answering even the simplest ques- 
tion ; then came a regular explosion of utterance. Yet 
he did not stutter or stammer. "When he had only yes 



58 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

or no to answer, the interval between question and an- 
swer was shorter. 

Here belong in part also the imperfections of speech 
that are occasioned by too large a tongue (macroglos- 
sia). When a child is born with too large a tongue, he 
may remain long alalic, without the loss of intellectual 
development, as was observed to be the case by Paster 
and O. von Heusinger (1882). 

II. DYSPHRASIA (DYSLOGICAL DISTURBANCES OF 
SPEECH). 

The child that can already speak pretty correctly de- 
forms his speech after the manner of insane persons, 
being moved by strange caprices, because his under- 
standing is not yet sufficiently developed. 

Logorrhom {Loquaciousness). — It is a regular occur- 
rence with children that their pleasure in articulation 
and in vocal sound often induces them to hold long 
monologues, sometimes in articulate sounds and sylla- 
bles, sometimes not. This chattering is kept up till the 
grown people present are weary, and that by children 
who can not yet talk ; and their screaming is often in- 
terrupted only by hoarseness, just as in the case of the 
polyphrasia of the insane. 

Dysjphrasia of the Melancholy. — Children exert 
themselves perceptibly in their first attempts to speak, 
answer indolently or not at all, or frequently with em- 
barrassment, always slowly, often with drawl and mono- 
tone, very frequently coming to a stop. They also 
sometimes begin to speak, and then lose at once the in- 
clination to go on. 

Dysphrasta of the Delirious ( Wahnsinnigen). — 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 59 

Children that have begun to speak often make new 
words for themselves. They have already invented 
signs before this ; they are also unintelligible often- 
times because they use the words they have learned in 
a different sense. 

Dysphrasia of the Insane ( Verruckteii). — The child 
is not yet prepared to speak. He possesses only non- 
co-ordinated sounds and isolated rudiments of words, 
primitive syllables, roots, as the primitive raw material 
of the future speech. 

In many insane persons only the disconnected re- 
mains or ruins of their stock of words are left, so that 
their speech resembles that of the child at a certain stage. 

Dysphrasia of the Feeble-minded. — The child at 
first reacts only upon strong impressions, and that often 
indolently and clumsily and with outcry ; later, upon 
impressions of ordinary strength, without understanding 
— laughing, crowing, uttering disconnected syllables. 

So the patient reacts either upon strong impressions 
only, and that indolently, bluntly, with gestures that 
express little and with rude words, or he still reacts 
upon impressions of ordinary strength, but in flat, silly, 
disconnected utterances. 

Dysphrasia of Idiots. — Children have command at 
the beginning of no articulate sounds ; then they learn 
these and syllables ; after this also words of one syllable ; 
then they speak short words of more than one syllable 
and sentences, but frequently babble forth words they 
have heard without understanding their meaning, like 
parrots. 

Imbeciles also frequently command only short words 
and sentences or monosyllabic words and sounds, or, final- 



60 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ly, they lack all articulate sound. Many microcephalous 
idiots babble words without understanding their mean- 
ing, like little children. 

Echo-speech or JEcholalia {Imitative Reflex Speech). 
— Children not yet able to frame a sentence correctly 
like to repeat the last word of a sentence they have 
heard ; and this, according to my observations and re- 
searches, is so general that I am forced to call this echo- 
lalia a physiological transition stage. Of long words 
said to them, the children usually repeat only the last 
two syllables or the last syllable only. The feeble- 
minded also repeat monotonously the words and sen- 
tences said by a person in their neighborhood without 
showing an awakened attention, and in general without 
connecting any idea with what they say. (Romberg.) 

Inter jectional Speech. — Children sometimes have a 
fancy for speaking in interjections. They express vague 
ideas by single vowels (like a), syllables (e. g., na, da), 
and combinations of syllables, and frequently call out 
aloud through the house meaningless sounds and sylla- 
bles. D and W are as yet undeveloped. 

Often, too, children imitate the interjections used by 
members of the family — hop ! patsch, bauz ! an inter- 
jectional echolalia. Many deranged persons express 
their feelings in like manner, in sounds, especially 
vowels, syllables, or sound-combinations resembling 
words, which are void of meaning or are associated 
merely with obscure ideas (Martini). Then D is con- 
nected with M only through L and S, and so through i 
and e. 

Emoolophrasia. — Many children, long after they 
have overcome acataphasia and agrammatism, delight 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 01 

in inserting between words sounds, syllables, and words 
that do not belong there; e. g., they double the last 
syllable of every word and put an eff to it : ich-ich-eff, 
bin-in-eff, etc., or they make a kind of bleat between 
the words (Kussraaul) ; and, in telling a story, put extra 
syllables into their utterance while they are thinking. 

Many adults likewise have the disagreeable habit of 
introducing certain words or meaningless syllables into 
their speech, where these do not at all belong ; or they 
tack on diminutive endings to their words. The syllables 
are often mere sounds, like eh, uh / in many cases they 
sound like eng, ang (angophrasia — Kussmaul). 

Palimphrasia. — Insane persons often repeat single 
sounds, syllables, or sentences, over and over without 
meaning ; e. g., " I am-am-am-am." 

" The phenomenon in mauy cases reminds us of 
children, who say or sing some word or phrase, a rhyme 
or little verse, so long continuously, like automata, that 
the by-standers can endure it no longer. It is often the 
ring of the words, often the sense, often both, by which 
the children are impressed. The child repeats them 
because they seem to him strange or very sonorous." 
(Kussmaul.) 

Bradyphrasia. — The speech of people that are sad 
or sleepy, and of others whose mental processes are in- 
dolent, often drags along with tedious slowness ; is also 
liable to be broken off abruptly. The speaker comes to 
a standstill. This is not to be confounded with brady- 
phasia or with bradyarthria or bradylalia (see above). 

In children likewise the forming of the sentence 
takes a long time on account of the as yet slow rise and 
combination of ideas, and a simple narrative is only 



62 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

slowly completed or not finished at all, because the in- 
tellectual processes in the brain are too fatiguing. 

jParaj?hrasia. — Under the same circumstances as in 
the case of bradjphrasia the (slow) speech may be 
marred and may become unintelligible because the train 
of thought is confused — e. g., in persons " drunk " with 
sleep — so that words are uttered that do not correspond 
to the original ideas. 

In the case of children who want to tell something, 
and who begin right, the story may be interrupted easily 
by a recollection, a fresh train of thought, and still they 
go on ; e. g., they mix up two fairy tales, attaching to 
the beginning of one the end of another. 

Skoliqphrasia. — Distracted and timid feeble-minded 
persons easily make mistakes in speaking, because they 
can not direct their attention to what they are saying 
and to the way in which they are saying it, but they 
wander, allowing themselves to be turned aside from 
the thing to be said by all sorts of ideas and external 
impressions ; and, moreover, they do not notice after- 
ward that they have been making mistakes (cf. p. 53). 

Children frequently put a wrong word in place of a 
right one well known to them, without noticing it. 
They allow themselves to be turned aside very easily 
from the main point by external impressions and all 
sorts of fancies, and often, in fact, say the opposite of 
what they mean without noticing it. 

III. DYSMIMIA. 

Disturbances of Gesture-Language (Pantomime). 

Perceptive Asemia. — Patients have lost the ability 
to understand looks and gestures (Steinthal). 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 63 

Children can not yet understand the looks and gest- 
ures of persons about them. 

Amnesic Amimia. — A phasic persons can sometimes 
imitate gestures, but can not execute them when bid, but 
only when the gestures are made for them to imitate. 
Children that do not yet speak can imitate gestures if 
these are made for them to see, but it is often a long 
time before they can make them at the word of com- 
mand. 

Ataxic Dysmimia and Amimia {Mimetic Ase- 
mia). — Patients can no longer execute significative looks 
and gestures, on account of defective co-ordination. 

Children can not express their states of desire, etc., 
because they do not yet control the requisite co-ordina- 
tion for the corresponding looks and gestures. 

Paramiinia {Paramimetic Asemia). — Many pa- 
tients can make use of looks and gestures, but confound 
them. 

Children have not yet firmly impressed upon them 
the significance of looks and gestures ; this is shown in 
their interchanging of these ; e. g., the head is shaken in 
the way of denial when they are affirming something. 

Emotive Language (Affectsprache) in Aphrasia. — 
In Aphrasia it happens that smiling, laughing, and 
weeping are no longer controlled, and that they break 
out on the least occasion with the greatest violence, like 
the spinal reflexes in decapitated animals. (Hughlings- 
Jackson.) 

Emotive language may continue when the language 
of ideas (Begriffssprache) is completely extinguished, 
and idiotic children without speech can even sing. 

In children, far slighter occasions suffice normally 



64 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

to call forth smiles, laughter, and tears, than in adults. 
These emotional utterances are not yet often voluntarily 
inhibited by the child that can not yet speak ; on the 
contrary, they are unnecessarily repeated. 

Apraxia. — Many patients are no longer in condition, 
on account of disturbed intellect, to make right use of 
ordinary objects, the use of which they knew well for- 
merly ; e. g., they can no longer find the way to the 
month ; or they bite into the soap. 

Children are not yet in condition, on account of de- 
ficient practice, to use the common utensils rightly ; e. g., 
they will eat soup with a fork, and will put the fork 
against the cheek instead of into the mouth. 

4. Development of Speech in the Child. 

We may now take up the main question as to the 
condition of the child that is learning to speak, in re- 
gard to the development and practicability of the nerve- 
paths and of the centers required for speech. For the 
comparison of the disturbances of speech in adults with 
the deficiencies of speech in the child, on the one 
hand, and the chronological observation of the child, on 
the other hand, disclose to us what parts of the apparatus 
of speech come by degrees into operation. First to be 
considered are the impressive and expressive paths in 
general. 

All new-born human beings are deaf or hard of 
hearing, as has already been demonstrated. Since the 
hearing but slowly grows more acute during the first 
days, no utterances of sound at this period can be re- 
garded as responses to any sound-impressions whatever. 
The first cry is purely reflexive, like the croaking of the 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 65 

decapitated frog wlien the skin of his back is stroked 
(Yol. I, p. 214). The cry is not heard by the newly-born 
himself and has not the least value as language. It is 
on a par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the 
bleating of the new-born lamb, and the peeping of the 
chick that is breaking its shell. 

Upon this first, short season of physiological deaf- 
mutism follows the period during which crying ex- 
presses bodily conditions, feelings such as pain, hunger, 
cold. Here, again, there exists as yet no connection 
of the expressive phenomena with acoustic impressions, 
but there is already the employment of the voice with 
stronger expiration in case of strong and disagreeable 
excitations of other sensory nerves than those of general 
sensation and of the skin. For the child now cries at a 
dazzling light also, and at a bitter taste, as if the un- 
pleasant feeling were diminished by the strong motor 
discharge. In any case the child cries because this loud, 
augmented expiration lessens for him the previously ex- 
isting unpleasant feelings, without exactly inducing 
thereby a comfortable condition. 

"Not until later does a sudden sound-impression, 
which at first called forth only a start and then a quiv- 
ering of the eyelids, cause also crying. But this loud 
sign of fright may be purely reflexive, just like the 
silent starting and throwing up of the arms at a sudden 
noise, and has at most the significance of an expression 
of discomfort, like screaming at a painful blow. 

It is otherwise with the first loud response to an 
acoustic impression recognized as new. The indefinable 
sounds of satisfaction made by the child that hears mu- 
sic for the first time are no longer reflexive, and are not 



66 TIIE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

symptoms of displeasure. I see in this reaction, which 
may be compared with the howling of the dog that for 
the first time in his life hears music — I see in this reac- 
tion of the apparatus of voice and of future speech, the 
first sign of the connection noio just established between 
impressive (acoustic) and expressive (having the character 
of emotive language) paths. The impressive, separately, 
were long since open, as the children under observation 
after the first week allowed themselves to be quieted by 
the singing of cradle-songs, and the expressive, separate- 
ly, must likewise have been open, since various condi- 
tions were announced by various sorts of crying. 

Everything now depends on a well-established inter- 
central communication between the two. This is next 
to be discussed. 

The primitive connection is already an advance upon 
that of a reflex arc. The sound-excitations arriving 
from the ear at the central endings of the auditory nerve- 
are not directly transformed into motor excitations for 
the laryngeal nerves, so that the glottis contracts to utter 
vocal sound. When the child (as early as the sixth to 
the eighth week) takes pleasure in music and laughs 
aloud, his voice can not in this case (as at birth) have 
been educed by reflex action, for without a cerebrum he 
would not laugh or utter joyous sounds, whereas even 
without that he cries. 

From this, however, by no means follows the exist- 
ence of a speech-center in the infant. The fact that 
he produces sounds easily articulated, although without 
choice, like tahu and amma, proves merely the func- 
tional capacity of the peripheral apparatus of articulation 
(in the seventh week) at a period long before it is inten- 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 67 

tionallj used for articulation. The unintentionally ut- 
tered syllables that make their appearance are, to be 
sure, simple, at least in the first half-year. It is vowels 
almost exclusively that appear in the first month, and 
these predominate for a long time yet. Of the conso- 
nants in the third month m alone is generally to be 
noted as frequent. This letter comes at a later period 
also, from the raising and dropping of the lower jaw in 
expiration, an operation that is besides soon easy for the 
infant with less outlay of will than the letter b, which 
necessitates a firmer closing of the lips. 

But in spite of the simplicity of all the vocal utter- 
ances and of the defectiveness of the articulatory appa- 
ratus, the child is able (often long before the seventh 
month) to respond to address, questions, chiding, either 
with inarticulato sounds or with vowels or by means of 
simple syllables, like pa, ta, ma, na, da, ma, mo, go, 
to [a as in father / a as in fate ; 6 like i in bird^\ 
Since these responses are entirely, or almost entirely, 
lacking in microcephali and in children born deaf, they 
are not purely reflexive, like sneezing, e. g. ; therefore 
there must be in the case of these a cerebral operation 
also, simple indeed, but indubitably intellectual, in- 
terposed between sound-perception and vocal utter- 
ance, especially as the infant behaves differently accord- 
ing to what he hears, and he discriminates very well 
the stern command from the caress, forbidding from 
allowing, in the voice of the person speaking to him. 
Yet it is much more the timbre, the accent, the pitch, 
the intensity of the voice and the sounds, the variation 
of which excites attention, than it is the spoken word. 
In the first half-year the child hears the vowels much 



08 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

better than he does the consonants, and will imperfectly 
understand or divine the sense of a few sounds only — 
e. g., when his name is uttered in a threatening tone he 
will hear merely the accented vowel, for at the first 
performance tanght him, purposely postponed to a very 
late period (in his thirteenth month), it made no differ- 
ence to my child whether we asked without changing a 
feature, " Wie gross \ " (how tall ?) or " ooss ? " or " oo % " 
In all three cases he answered with the same movement 
of the hand. 

K"ow, although all infants in normal condition, be- 
fore they can repeat anything after others or can under- 
stand any word whatever, express their feelings by vari- 
ous sounds, even by syllables, and distinguish vowels 
and many consonants in the words spoken to them, yet 
this does not raise them above the intelligent animal. 
The response to friendly address and loud chiding by 
appropriate sounds is scarcely to be distinguished as to 
its psychical value from the joyous barking and whining 
of the poodle. 

The pointer-dog's understanding of the few spoken 
utterances that are impressed upon him in his training 
is also quite as certain at least as the babe's understand- 
ing of the jargon of the nurse. The correctly executed 
movements or arrests of movement following the sound- 
impressions " Setz dich ! Pfui ! Zuriick ! Yorwarts ! 
Allez ! Fass ! Apporte ! Such ! Yerloren ! Pst ! Lass ! 
Hierher ! Brav ! Leid's nicht ! Puhig ! "Wahr Dich ! 
Hab Acht! "Was ist das! Pfui Yogel! Pfui Hase! 
Halt ! " prove that the bird-dog understands the mean- 
ing of the sounds and syllables and words heard as far 
as he needs to understand them. The training in the 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 69 

English language accomplishes the same result with 
"Down! Down charge! Steady! Toho! Fetch! Hold 
up!" as the training in the French language, with yet 
other words — so that we can by no means assume any 
hereditary connection whatever between the quality of 
the sound heard and the movement or arrest of move- 
ment to be executed, such as may perhaps exist in the 
case of the chick just hatched which follows the cluck- 
ing of the hen. Rather does the dog learn afresh in 
every case the meaning of the words required for hunt- 
ing, just as the speechless child comprehends the mean- 
ing of the first words of its future language without 
being able to repeat them himself — e. g., " Give ! Come ! 
Hand ! Sh ! Quiet ! " Long before the child ? s mechan- 
ism of articulation is so far developed that these ex- 
pressions can be produced by him, the child manifests 
his understanding of them unequivocally by correspond- 
ing movements, by gestures and looks, by obedience. 

'No doubt this behavior varies in individual cases, 
inasmuch as in some few the imitative articulation may 
be to some extent earlier developed than the under- 
standing. There are many children who even in their 
first year have a monkey-like knack at imitation and re- 
peat all sorts of things like parrots without guessing the 
sense of them. Here, however, it is to be borne in mind 
that such an echo-speech appears only after the first 
understanding of some spoken word can be demon- 
strated ; in no case before the fourth month. Lindner 
relates that when he one day observed that his child of 
eighteen weeks was gazing at the swinging pendulum 
of the house-clock, he went with him to it, saying, 
" Tick-tack," in time with the pendulum ; and when he 
8 



70 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

afterward called out to the child, who was no longer 
looking at the clock, " Tick-tack ! " this call was an- 
swered, at first with delay, a little later immediately, by 
a turning of the look toward the clock. This proved 
that there was understanding long before the first imi- 
tation of words. Progress now became pretty rapid, so 
that at the end of the seventh month the questions, 
" Where is your eye ? ear ? head ? mouth ? nose ? the 
table? chair? sofa?" were answered correctly by move- 
ments of hand and eyes. In the tenth month this child 
for the first time himself used a word as a means of ef- 
fecting an understanding, viz., mama (soon afterward, 
indeed, he called both parents papa). The child's ina- 
bility to repeat distinctly syllables spoken for him is 
not to be attributed, shortly before the time at which 
he succeeds in doing it, to a purely psychical adynamy 
(impotence), not, as many suppose, to " being stupid, 3 ' 
or to a weakness of will without organic imperfections 
determined by the cerebral development, for the efforts, 
the attention, and the ability to repeat incorrectly, show 
that the will is not wanting. Since also the peripheral 
impressive acoustic and expressive phonetic paths are 
intact and developed, as is proved by the acuteness of 
the hearing and the spontaneous formation of the very 
syllables desired, the cause of the inability to repeat 
correctly must be solely organic-centro-motor. The 
connecting paths between the sound-center and the 
syllable-center, and of both these with the speech mo- 
torium, are not yet or not easily passable ; but the imi- 
tation of a single sound, be it only a, can not take place 
without the mediation of the cerebral cortex. Thus in 
the very first attempt to repeat something heard there 



LEARNING TO SPEAK 71 

exists an unquestionable advance in brain development ; 
and the first successful attempt of this kind proves not 
merely the augmented functional ability of the articu- 
lator apparatus and of the sound-center, and the practi- 
cability of the impressive paths that lead from the ear 
to the sound-center — it proves, above all, the establish- 
ment of intercentral routes that lead from the sound- 
center and the syllable-center to the motorium. 

In fact, the correct repeating of a sound heard, of a 
syllable, and, finally, of a word pronounced by another 
person, is the surest proof of the establishment and prac- 
ticability of the entire impressive, central, and expressive 
path. It, however, proves nothing as to the understand- 
ing of the sound or word heard and faultlessly repeated. 

As the term "understanding" or "understand" is 
ambiguous, in so far as it may relate to the ideal con- 
tent (the meaning), and at the same time to the mere 
perception of the word spoken (or written or touched) — 
e. g., when any one speaks indistinctly so that we do 
not " understand " him — it is advisable to restrict the use 
of this expression. Understand shall in future apply 
only to the meaning of the word ; hear — since it is sim- 
ply the perceiving of a word through the hearing that 
we have in view — will relate to the sensuous impression. 
It is clear, then, that all children who can hear but can 
not yet speak, repeat many words without understand- 
ing them, and understand many words without being 
able to repeat them, as Kussmaul has already observed. 
But I must add that the repeating of what is not under- 
stood begins only after some word (even one that can 
not be repeated) has been understood, 

Now it is certain that the majority, if not all, of 



72 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the children that have good hearing develop the under- 
standing more at first, since the impressive side is prac- 
ticed more and sooner than the expressive-articulatory. 
Probably those that imitate early and skillfully are the 
children that can speali earliest, and whose cerebrum 
grows fastest but also soonest ceases to grow ; whereas 
those that imitate later and more sparingly, generally 
learn to speak later, and will generally be the more in- 
telligent. For with the higher sort of activity goes the 
greater growth of brain. "While the other children culti- 
vate more the centro-motor portion, the sensory, the in- 
tellectual, is neglected. In animals, likewise, a brief, 
rapid development of the brain is wont to go along 
with inferior intelligence. The intelligence gets a bet- 
ter development when the child, instead of repeating 
all sorts of things without any meaning, tries to guess 
the meaning of what he hears. Precisely the epoch at 
which this takes place belongs to the most interesting 
in intellectual development. Like a pan tomi mist, the 
child, by means of his looks and gestures, and further 
by cries and by movements of all sorts, gives abundant 
evidence of his understanding and his desires, without 
himself speaking a single word. As the adult, after 
having half learned a foreign language from books, can 
not speak (imitate) it, and can not easily understand it 
when he hears it spoken fluently by one that is a perfect 
master of it, but yet makes out single expressions and 
understands them, and divines the meaning of the whole, 
so the child at this stage can distinctly hear single words, 
can grasp the purport of them, and divine correctly a 
whole sentence from the looks and gestures of the speak- 
er, although the child himself makes audible no articulate 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. Y3 

utterance except his own, for the most part meaningless, 
variable babble of sonnds and syllables and outcries. 

The causes of the slowness of the progress in ex- 
pressing in articulate words what is understood and 
desired, on the part of normal children, is not, however, 
to be attributed, as it has often been, to a slower devel- 
opment of the expressive motor mechanism, but must 
be looked for in the difficulty of establishing the con- 
nection of the various central storehouses of sense- 
impressions with the intercentral path of connection 
between the acoustic speech - centers and the speech- 
motorium. For the purely peripheral articulatory acts 
are long since perfect, although as yet a simple " a " or 
"pa " can not be repeated after another person ; for 
these and other sounds and syllables are already uttered 
correctly by the child himself. 

The order of succession in which these separate 
sounds appear, without instruction, is very different in 
individual cases. With my boy, who learned to speak 
rather late, and was not occupied with learning by 
heart, the following was the order of the perfectly 
pure sounds heard by me : 

On the left are the sounds or syllables indicated by 
one letter ; on the right, the same indicated by more 
than one letter ; and it is to be borne in mind that the 
child needs to pronounce only fourteen of the nineteen 
so-called consonants of the German alphabet in order to 
master the remaining five also ; for 

c = ts and k 
v = f and w 
x = ks and gs 
q = ku and kw 
z = ts and ds 



74: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

and of the fourteen four require no new articulation, 
because 

p is a toneless b 
t is a toneless d 
f is a toneless w 
k is a toneless g 

Of the ten positions of the mouth required for all 
the consonants of the alphabet, nine are taken by the 
child within the first six months : * 

Months. 

1. Indefinite 
vowels ; a u, ua. 

2. a, o, o ; m, 

g, r, t ; h, am, ma, ta, hu, or, ro, ar, ra, go. 

3. i ; b, 1, n, ua, oa, ao, ai, el, oa, ao, aa, ao ; om, in, ab, om ; la, ho, 

mo, na, na, ha, bu ; ng, mb, gr. 

4. e, au, a-u, ao, ea ; an ; na, to, la, me ; nt. 

5. ii (y) ; k, ag, eg, ek, ge, ko. 

6. j ; the lin- oi (eu, au), io, oe, eu (French) ; ij, aj, og, ich; ja, ja; 
gual - labial rg, br, ch. 

sound, 

7. d, p, ae, ui ; ma. 

8. eo, ae, ou, au; up; ho, mi, te. 

9. ap, ach, am ; pa, ga, cha. 

10. el, ab, at, at ; da, ba, ta, ta ; nd. 

11. ad, al, ak, er, ej, 6d ; da, ga, ba, ka, ke, je, he, ne ; 

pr, tr. 

12. w, an, op, ew, ar ; de, wa ; nj, Id. 
18. s (ss), en ; hi ; dn. 

14. mu ; kn, gn, kt. 

15. z, oo, oa, is, iss, es, ass, th (English), ith (Engl.), it ; ha, 

di, wa, sse. 

16. f (v), ok, on ; do, go ; bw, fp. 

17. ib, 5t, an; bi. 

18. ai, ia; ap, im ; tu, pit; ft. 

19. on, et, es ; sa, be ; st, tth (Engl.), s-ch, sj. 

* Pronounce the letters in the tabular view as in German. 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. Y5 

Months. 

20. ub, ot, id, od, oj, uf, at; bo, ro, jo ; dj, dth (Engl). 

21. op ; fe ; rl, dl, nk, pt. 

22. ol ; lo ; ps, pt, tl, sen, tsch, pth (Engl.). 

23. q, uo ; id, op, urn, em, us, un, ow, ed, uk, ig, il ; jo, ju, 

po, mo, wo, fa, fo, fi, we, ku (qu), li, ti ; tn, pf , gch, 
gj, tj, schg. 

24. ut, esch ; pu, wi, schi, pi. 

25. oe, ul, il, och, iw, ip, ur ; It, rb, rt. 

26. nl, ds, mp, rm, fl, kl, nch, ml, dr. 

27. x, kch, cht, lch, Is, sw, si. 

Every sucli chronological view of the sequence of 
sounds is uncertain, because we can not observe the 
child uninterruptedly, and hence the first appearance of 
a new sound easily escapes notice. The above synopsis 
has a chronological value only so far as this, that it an- 
nounces, concerning every single sound, that such sound 
was heard in its purity by me at least as early as the 
given month. The sound may, however, have been ut- 
tered considerably earlier without my hearing it. I know 
from personal experience that in other children many 
sounds appear much earlier ; in my child, e. g., nga was 
observed too late, and I have no doubt that the first ut- 
terance of f and w was unobserved, although I was on 
the lookout for them. When it is maintained, on the 
contrary, that m is not heard from a normal child until 
the tenth month, then the am and m'6 which appear uni- 
versally in the first half-year have escaped notice. Ear- 
lier tabular views of this sort, which have even served 
as a foundation for instruction of deaf-mutes in speak- 
ing, do not rest exclusively on observation. Besides, in 
this matter, even two children hardly agree. According 
to my observations, I am compelled in spite of this dis- 
agreement to lay down the proposition as valid for all 



76 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

healthy children, that the greatly preponderating ma- 
jority of the sounds the child makes use of after learn- 
ing verbal language, and many other sounds besides 
these, are correctly formed by him within the first eight 
months, not intentionally, but just as much at random 
as any other utterance of sound not to be used later in 
speech, not appearing in any civilized language. I will 
only mention as an example the labio-lingual explosive 
sound, in which the tip of the tongue comes between 
the lips and, with an expiration, bursting from its con- 
finement is drawn back swiftly (with or without tone). 
All children seem to like to form this sound, a sound 
between p, b, and t, d : but it exists in few languages. 

Among the innumerable superfluous, unintentional, 
random, muscular movements of the infant, the move- 
ments of the muscles of the larynx, mouth, and tongue 
take a conspicuous place, because they ally themselves 
readily with acoustic effects and the child takes delight 
in them. It is not surprising, therefore, that precisely 
those vibrations of the vocal cords, precisely those shap- 
ings of the cavity of the mouth, and those positions of 
the lips, often occur which we observe in the utterance 
of our vowels, and that among the child-noises produced 
unconsciously and in play are found almost all our con- 
sonants and, besides, many that are used in foreign lan- 
guages. The plasticity of the apparatus of speech in 
youth permits the production of a greater abundance of 
sounds and sound-combinations than is employed later, 
and not a single child has been observed who has, in 
accordance with the principle of the least effort (prin- 
cipe du moindre effort) applied by French authors to 
this province, advanced in regular sequence from the 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. ft 

sounds articulated easily — i. e., with less activity of will 
— to the physiologically difficult ; rather does it hold^ 
good for all the children I have observed, and probably 
for all children that learn to speak, that many of the 
sounds uttered by them at the beginning, in the speech- 
less season of infancy, without effort and then forgotten, 
have to be learned afresh at a later period, have to be 
painstakingly acquired by means of imitation. 

Mobility and perfection in the technique of sound- 
formation are not speech. They come into consideration 
in the process of learning to speak as facilitating the 
process, because the muscles are perfected by previous 
practice ; but the very first attempts to imitate volun- 
tarily a sound heard show how slight this advantage is. 
Even those primitive syllables which the child of him- 
self often pronounces to weariness, like da, he can not 
at the beginning (in the tenth month in my case) as yet 
say after any one, although he makes manifest by his ef- 
fort — a regular strain — by his attention, and his unsuc- 
cessful attempts, that he would like to say them, as I 
have already mentioned. The reason is to be looked 
for in the still incomplete development of the sensori- 
motor central paths. In place of tatta is sounded ta or 
ata / in place of jpa/pa even ta'i, and this not once only, 
but after a great many trials repeated again and again 
with the utmost patience. That the sound-image has 
been correctly apprehended is evident from the certainty 
with which the child responds correctly in various cases 
by gestures to words of similar sound unpronounceable 
by him. Thus, he points by mistake once only to the 
mouth (Mund) instead of the moon (Mond), and points 
correctly to the ear (Ohr) and the clock (Uhr) when 



78 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

asked wliere these objects are. The acuteness of hear- 
ing indispensable for repeating the sounds is therefore 
present before the ability to repeat. 

On the whole, the infant or the young child already 
weaned must be placed higher at this stage of his men- 
tal development than a very intelligent animal, but not 
on account of his knowledge of language, for the dog 
also understands very well single words in the speech 
of his master, in addition to hunting-terms. He divines, 
from the master's looks and gestures, the meaning of 
whole sentences, and, although he has not been brought 
to the point of producing articulate sounds, yet much 
superior in this respect is the performance of the cocka- 
too, which learns all articulate sounds. A child who 
shows by looks and gestures and actions that he under- 
stands single words, and who already pronounces cor- 
rectly many words by imitation without understanding 
them, does not on this account stand higher intellectu- 
ally than a sagaciously calculating yet speechless ele- 
phant or an Arabian horse, but because he already forms 
many more and far more complex concepts. 

The animal phase of intellect lasts, in the sound, 
vigorous, and not neglected child, to the end of the 
first year of life at the farthest; and long before the 
close of this he has, by means of the "feelings of pleas- 
ure and of discomfort, very definitely distinguishable 
by him even in the first days of life, but for which 
he does not get the verbal expressions till the second 
and third year, formed for himself at least in one prov- 
ince, viz., that of food, ideas more or less well defined. 
Romanes also rightly remarks that the concept of food 
arises in us through the feeling of hunger quite inde- 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. ?9 

pendently of language. Probably tliis concept is the 
very first that is formed by the quite young infant, only 
he would not name it " food," if indeed he named it at 
all, but would understand by it everything that puts an 
end to the feeling of hunger. It is of great importance 
to hold firmly to this fact of the origination of ideas, 
and that not of sensuous percepts only but of concepts, 
without language, because it runs contrary to prevailing 
assumptions. 

He who has conscientiously observed the mental de- 
velopment of infants must come to the conclusion that 
the formation of ideas is not hound up with the learn- 
ing of words, but is a necessary prerequisite for the 
understanding of the words to he learned first, and 
therefore for learning to speak. Long before the child 
understands even a single word, before he uses a single 
syllable consistently with a definite meaning, he already 
has a number of ideas which are expressed by looks and 
gestures and cries. To these belong especially ideas 
gained through touch and sight. Associations of objects 
touched and seen with impressions of taste are probably 
the first generators of concepts. The child, still speech- 
less and toothless, takes a lively interest in bottles ; sees, 
e. g., a bottle that is filled with a white opaque liquid 
(Goulard water), and he stretches out his arms with 
desire toward it, screaming a long time, in the belief 
that it is a milk-bottle (observed by me in the case of 
my child in the thirty-first week). The bottle when 
empty or when filled with water is not so long attractive 
to him, so that the idea of food (or of something to 
drink, something to suck, something sweet) must arise 
from the sight of a bottle with certain contents without 



80 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the understanding or even utterance of any words, The 
formation of concepts without words is actually demon- 
strated by this ; for the speechless child not only per- 
ceived the points of identity of the various bottles of 
wine, water, oil, the nursing-bottle and others, the sight 
of which excited him, but he united in one notion the 
contents of the different sorts of bottles when what was 
in them was white — i. e., he had separated the concept 
of food from that of the bottle. Ideas are thus inde- 
pendent of words. 

Certain as this proposition is, it is not, however, 
supported by the reasons given for it by Kussmaul, viz. 3 
that one and the same object is variously expressed in 
various languages, and that a new animal or a new ma- 
chine is known before it is named ; for no one de- 
sires to maintain that certain ideas are necessarily con- 
nected with certain words, without the knowledge of 
which they could not arise — it is maintained only that 
ideas do not exist without words. Now, any object 
has some appellation in each language, were it only 
the appellation " object," and a new animal, a new ma- 
chine, is already called " animal," " machine," before it 
receives its special name. Hence from this quarter the 
proof can not be derived. On the other hand, the 
speechless infant certainly furnishes the proof, which is 
confirmed by some observations on microcephalous per- 
sons several years old or of adult age. The lack of the 
power of abstraction apparent in these persons and in 
idiots is not so great that they have not developed the 
notion " food " or " taking of food." 

Indeed, it is not impossible that the formation of 
ideas may continue after the total loss of word-memory, 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 81 

as in the remarkable and much-talked-of case of Lordat. 
Yet this case does not by any means prove that the 
formation of concepts of the higher order is possible 
without previous mastery of verbal language ; rather is 
it certain that concepts rising above the lowest abstrac- 
tions can be formed only by him who has thoroughly 
learned to speak : for intelligent children without speech 
are acquainted, indeed, with more numerous and more 
complex ideas than are very sagacious animals, but not 
with many more abstractions of a higher sort, and where 
the vocabulary is small the power of abstraction is wont 
to be as weak in adults as in children. The latter, to be 
sure, acquire the words for the abstract with more diffi- 
culty and later than those for the concrete, but have 
them stamped more firmly on the mind (for, when the 
word-memory fails, proper names and nouns denoting 
concrete objects are, as a rule, first forgotten). But it 
would not be admissible, as I showed above, to conclude 
from this that no abstraction at all takes place without 
words. To me, indeed, it is probable that in the most 
intense thought the most abstract conceptions are ef- 
fected most rapidly without the disturbing images of the 
soundaftof words, and are only supplementarily clothed 
in words. In any case the intelligent child forms many 
concepts of a lower sort without any knowledge of words 
at all, and he therefore performs abstraction without 
words. 

When Sigismund showed to his son, not yet a year 
old and not able to speak a word, a stuffed woodcock, 
and, pointing to it, said, " Bird," the child directly after- 
ward looked toward another side of the room where 
there stood upon the stove a stuffed white owl, repre- 



82 TEE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

sented as in flight, which he must certainly have ob-' 
served before. Here, then, the concept had already 
arisen ; but how little specialized are the first concepts 
connected with words that do not relate to food is 
shown by the fact that in the case of Lindner's child 
(in the tenth month) up signified also down, warm sig- 
nified also cold. Just so my child used too much also 
for too little; another child used no also for yes; a 
third used / for you. If these by no means isolated 
phenomena rest upon a lack of differentiation of the 
concepts, "then the child already has a presentiment 
that opposites are merely the extreme terms of the same 
series of conceptions " (Lindner), and this before he can 
command more than a few words. 

But to return to the condition of the normal child, 
as yet entirely speechless. It is clear that, being filled 
with desire to give expression in every way to his feel- 
ings, especially to his needs, he will use his voice, too, 
for this purpose. The adult likewise cries out with 
pain, although the " Oh ! " has no direct connection 
with the pain, and there is no intention of making, by 
means of the outcry, communication to others. JNbw, 
before the newly-born is in condition to seek that which 
excites pleasure, to avoid what excites displeasure, he 
cries out in like fashion, partly without moving the 
tongue, partly with the sound a dominant, repeated over 
and over monotonously till some change of external 
conditions takes place. After this the manner of cry- 
ing begins to vary according to the condition of the in- 
fant ; then come sounds clearly distinguishable as indi- 
cations of pleasure or displeasure ; then syllables, at first 
to some extent spontaneously articulated without mean- 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 83 

ing, afterward such as express desire, pleasure, etc. ; not 
until much later imitated sounds, and often the imperfect 
imitation of the voices of animals, of inorganic noises, 
and of spoken words. The mutilation of his words 
makes it seem as if the child were already inventing new 
designation^ which are soon forgotten ; and as the child , 
like the lunatic, uses familiar words in a new sense after 
he has begun to learn to talk, his style of expression 
gets an original character, that of " baby-talk." Here 
it is characteristic that the feelings and ideas do not 
now first arise, though they are now first articulately 
expressed ; but they were in part present long since and 
did not become articulate, but were expressed by means 
of looks and gestures. In the adult ideas generate new 
words, and the formation of new words does not cease 
so long as thinking continues ; but in the child without 
speech new feelings and new ideas generate at first only 
new cries and movements of the muscles of the face 
and limbs, and, the further we look back into child- 
development proper, the greater do we find the num- 
ber of the conditions expressed by one and the same 
cry. The organism as yet has too few means at its 
disposal. In many cases of aphasia every mental state 
is expressed by one and the same word (often a word 
without meaning). Upon closer examination it is 
found, however, that for the orator also, who is com- 
plete master of speech, all the resources of language are 
insufficient. No one, e. g., can name all the colors that 
may be perceived, or describe paiu, or describe even a 
cloud, so that several hearers gain the same idea of ita. 
form that the speaker has. The words come short, but 
the idea is clear. If words sufficed to express clearly 



g4 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

clear conceptions, then the greater part of our philo- 
sophical and theological literature would not exist. This 
literature has its basis essentially in the inevitable fact 
that different persons do not associate the same concept 
with the same word, aud so one word is used to indi- 
cate different concepts (as is the case with the child). If 
a concept is exceptionally difficult — i. e., exceptionally 
hard to express clearly in words — then it is wont to re- 
ceive many names, e. g., "die," and the confusion and 
strife are increased ; but words alone render it possible 
to form and to make clear concepts of a higher sort. 
They favor the formation of new ideas, and without 
them the intellect in man remains in a lower stage of 
development just because they are the most trustworthy 
and the most delicate means of expression for ideas. If 
ideas are not expressed at all, or not intelligibly, their 
possessor can not use them, can not correct or make 
them effective. Those ideas only are of value, as a gen- 
eral thing, which continue to exist after being com- 
municated to others. Communication takes place with 
accuracy (among human beings) only by means of 
words. It is therefore important to know how the 
child learns to speak words, and then to use them. 

I have above designated, as the chief difficulty for 
the child in the formation of words, the establishment 
of a connection between the central storehouse for sense- 
impressions — i. e., the sensory centers of higher rank — 
with the intercentral path of connection between the 
center-for-sounds and the speech-motorium. After the 
establishment of these connections, and long after ideas 
have been formed, the sound-image of the word spoken 
by the mother, when it emerges in the center-for-sounds 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 85 

directly after the rise of a clear idea, is now repeated 
by the child accurately, or, in case it offers insurmount- 
able difficulties of articulation for pronunciation, inac- 
curately. This fact of sound-imitation is fundamental. 
Beyond it we can not go. Especially must be noted 
here as essential that it appears to be an entirely indif- 
ferent matter what syllables and words are employed 
for the first designation of the child's ideas. Were one 
disposed to provide the child with false designations, he 
could easily do it. The child would still connect them 
logically. If taught further on that two times three are 
five, he would merely give the name five to what is six, 
and would soon adopt the usual form of expression. In 
making a beginning of the association of ideas with ar- 
ticulate syllables, such syllables are, as a rule, employed 
(probably in all languages) as have already been often 
uttered by the child spontaneously without meaning, 
because these offered no difficulties of articulation ; but 
only the child's family put meaning into tbem. Such 
syllables are pa, ma, with their doubled form papa, 
mama, for "father" and "mother," in connection with 
which it is to be observed that the meaning of them is 
different in different languages and even in the dialects 
of a language. For mamdn, mama, mama, mamme, 
mammeli, momme, mam, mamma, mammeken, memme, 
memmehen, mammele, mammi, are at the same time 
child-words and designations for "mother" in various 
districts of Germany, whereas these and very similar 
expressions signify also the mother's breast, milk, pap, 
drink, nursing-bottle ; nay, even in some languages the 
father is designated by J/<z-sounds, the mother by Ba- 
and Pa-sounds. 



g£ THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

It is very much the same with other primitive syl- 
lables, of the babe's utterance, e.g., atta. Where this 
does not denote the parents or grandparents it is fre- 
quently used (tdta, tatta, tatd, also in England and 
Germany) in the sense of "gone" ("fort") and "good- 

by." 

These primitive syllables, pa-pa, ma-ma, tata and 
apa, ama, ata, originate of themselves when in the ex- 
piration of breath the passage is stopped either by the 
lips (p, m) or by the tongue (d, t) ; but after they have 
been already uttered many times with ease, without 
meaning, at random, the mothers of all nations make 
use of them to designate previously existing ideas of 
the child, and designate by them what is most famil- 
iar. Hence occurs the apparent confounding of " milk " 
and "breast" and "mother" and "(wet-) nurse" or 
"nurse" and "bottle," all of which the child learns to 
call mam, amma, etc. 

But just at this period appears a genuine echolalia, 
the child, unobserved, repeating correctly and like a 
machine, often in a whisper, all sorts of syllables, when 
he hears them at the end of a sentence. The normal 
child, before he can speak, repeats sounds, syllables, 
words, if they are short, " mechanically," without un- 
derstanding, as he imitates movements of the hands 
and the head that are made in his sight. Speaking is 
a movement-making that invites imitation the more be- 
cause it can be strictly regulated by means of the ear. 
Anything more than regulation is not at first given by 
the sense of hearing, for those born deaf also learn to 
speak. They can even, like normal children, speak 
quite early in dreams (according to Gerard van Asch). 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 87 

Those born deaf, as well as normal children, when one 
turns quietly toward them, often observe attentively 
the lips (and also tonch them sometimes) and the tongue 
of the person speaking ; and this visual image, even 
without an auditory image, provokes imitation, which 
is made perfect by the combination of the two. This 
combination is lacking in the child born blind, pure 
echolalia prevailing in this case ; in the one born deaf, 
the combination is likewise wanting, the reading-off of 
the syllables from the mouth coming in as a substitute. 
"With the deaf infant the study of the mouth-move- 
ments is, as is well known, the only means of under- 
standing w T ords spoken aloud, and it is sight that serves 
almost exclusively for this, very rarely touch ; and the 
child born deaf often repeats the visible movements of 
lips and tongue better than the hearing child that can 
not yet talk. It is to be observed, in general, that the 
hearing child makes less use, on the whole, of the 
means of reading-off from the mouth than we assume, 
but depends chiefly on the ear. I have always found, 
too, that the child has the greatest difficulty in imitating 
a position of the mouth, in case the sound belonging to 
it is not made, whereas he easily achieves the same po- 
sition of the mouth when the acoustic effect goes along 
with it. 

Accordingly, the connection between the ear and the 
speech-center must be shorter or more practicable in 
advance (hereditarily) than that between the eye and 
the speech-center. With regard to both associations, 
however, the gradually progressive shortening or con- 
solidating is to be distinguished in space and time. 
"With the child that does not yet speak, but is beginning 



88 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

to repeat syllables correctly and to associate them with 
primitive ideas, the act of imitation takes longer than 
with the normal adult, but the paths in the brain that 
he makes use of are shorter, absolutely and relatively — 
absolutely, because the whole brain is smaller ; rela- 
tively, because the higher centers, which at a later peri- 
od perform their functions with consciousness and ac- 
cessory ideas, are still lacking. Notwithstanding this, 
the time is longer than at a later period — often amount- 
ing to several seconds — because the working up of 
what has been heard, and even the arrangement of it 
in the center for sound-images, and of what has been 
seen in the center for sight-images, takes more time 
apart from a somewhat less swift propagation of the 
nerve-excitement in the peripheral paths. The child's 
imitation can not be called fully conscious or deliberate. 
It resembles the half-conscious or unconscious imitation 
attained by the adult through frequent repetition — i. e., 
through manifold practice — and which, as a sort of rem- 
iniscence of conscious or an abbreviation of deliberate 
imitation, results from frequent continuous use of the 
same paths. Only, the child's imitations last longer, and 
especially the reading-off from the mouth. The child 
can not distinguish the positions of the mouth that be- 
long to a syllable, but can produce them himself very 
correctly. He is like the patients that Kussmaul calls 
" word-blind," who can not, in spite of good sight, read 
the written words they see, but can express them in 
speech and writing. For the same word, e. g., acta, 
which the child does not read off from the mouth and 
does not repeat, he uses himself when he wants to be 
taken out; thus the inability is not expressive-motor, 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 89 

but central or intercentral. For the child can already 
see very well the movement of mouth and tongue ; the 
impressive sight-path has been long established. 

Herein this sort of word-blindness agrees fully with 
the physiological word-deafness of the normal child 
without speech, whose hearing is good. For he under- 
stands wrongly what he hears, when, e. g., in response 
to the order, " ~Eo ! no ! " he makes the affirmative 
movement of the head, although he can make the right 
movement very well. Here too, then, it is not cen- 
trifugal and centripetal peripheral lines, but intercen- 
tral paths or centers, that are not yet sufficiently devel- 
oped — in the case of my child, in the fourteenth 
month. The path leading from the word-center to the 
dictorium, and the word-center itself, must have been 
as yet too little used. 

From all this it results, in relation to the question, 
how the child comes to learn and to use words, that in 
the first place he has ideas ; secondly, he imitates 
sounds, syllables, and words spoken for him ; and, 
thirdly, he associates the ideas with these. E. g., the 
idea " white -f- wet -\- sweet + warm " having arisen out 
of frequent seeing, feeling, and tasting of milk, it de- 
pends upon what primitive syllable is selected for 
questioning the hungry infant, for talking to him, 
or quieting him, whether he expresses his desire for 
food by mom, mimi, nana, ning, or maman, or mam, or 
mem, or mima, or yet other syllables. The oftener he 
has the idea of food (i. e., something that banishes 
hunger or the unpleasant feeling of it), and at the same 
time the sound-impression " milk," so much the more 
will the latter be associated with the former, and in 



90 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

consideration of the great advantages it offers, in being 
understood by all, will finally be adopted. Thus the 
child learns his first words. But in each individual 
case the first words acquired in this manner have a 
wider range of meaning than the later ones. 

By means of pure echolalia, without associating ideas 
with the word babbled in imitation, the child learns, to 
be sure, to articulate words likewise ; but he does not 
learn to understand them or to use them properly unless 
coincidences, intentional or accidental, show him this 
or that result when this or that word is uttered by him. 
If the child, e. g., hearing the new word " Schnee," 
says, as an echo, nee, and then some one shows him 
actual snow, the meaningless nee becomes associated 
with a sense-intuition ; and later, also, nothing can take 
the place of the intuition — i. e., the direct, sensuous 
perception — as a means of instruction. This way of 
learning the use of words is exactly the opposite of that 
just discussed, and is less common because more labori- 
ous. For, in the first case, the idea is first present, and 
only needs to be expressed (through hearing the appro- 
priate word). In the second case, the word comes first, 
and the idea has to be brought in artificially. Later, 
the word, not understood, awakens curiosity, and there- 
by generates ideas. But this requires greater maturity. 

The third way in which the first words are learned 
is this : The idea and the word appear almost simultane- 
ously, as in onomatopoetic designations and interjections. 
Absolutely original onomatopoetic w^ords are very rare 
with children, and have not been observed by me ex- 
cept after the children already knew some words. The 
names of animals, how-wow, moo-moo, j?eep-peep (bird), 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 91 

hotto (horse, from the expression of the carter, " hott- 
ho (tt" instead of Haut (the skin), i. e., "left," in 
contrast with " aarr " — Haar, Mahne (the mane) — i. e., 
"right"), are spoken for the child by the members 
of his family. Some names of animals, like kukuk 
(cuckoo), also kikeriki (cock) and kuak (duck, frog), 
are probably formed often without having been heard 
from others, only more indistinctly, by German, English 
(American), and French children. Ticktack (tick-tick) 
has also been repeated by a boy of two years for a watch. 
On the other hand, weo-weo-weo (German, uio) for the 
noise of winding a watch (observed by Holden in a boy 
of two years) is original. Hut, as an unsuccessful imi- 
tation of the locomotive-whistle by my boy of two and 
a half years, seems also noteworthy as an onomatope 
independently invented, because it was used daily for 
months in the same way merely to designate the whistle. 
The voice of the hen, of the redstart, the creaking of 
a wheel, were imitated by my child of his own accord 
long before he could speak a word. But this did not 
go so far as the framing of syllables. It is not easy in 
this to trace so clearly the framing of a concept as at- 
taching itself directly to onomatopoetic forms as it is 
in a case communicated by Romanes. A child that was 
beginning to talk, saw and heard a duck on the water, 
and said quack. Thereafter the child called, on the 
one hand, all birds and insects, on the other hand, all 
liquids, quack. Finally, it called all coins also quack, 
after having seen an eagle on a French sou. Thus the 
child came, by gradual generalization, to the point of 
designating a fly, wine, and a piece of money by the 
same onomatopoetic word, although only the first per- 



92 THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

ception contained the characteristic that gave the 
name. 

Another case is reported by Ednard Schulte: A 
boy of a year and three quarters applied the joyous 
ontcry ei (which may be an imitated interjection), modi- 
fying it first into eiz, into aze, and then into ass, to his 
wooden goat on wheels, and covered with rough hide ; 
eiz, then, became exclusively a cry of joy ; ass, the 
name for everything that moved along — e. g., for ani- 
mals and his own sister and the wagon ; also for every- 
thing that moved at all ; finally, for everything that 
had a rough surface. Now, as this child already called 
all coverings of the head and covers of cans huta, when 
he saw, for the first time, a fur caj), he at once chris- 
tened it ass-huta. Here took place a decided subordina- 
tion of one concept to another, and therewith a new 
formation of a word. How broad the comprehensive- 
ness of the concept designated huta was, is perceived 
especially in this, that it was used to express the wish 
to have objects at which the child pointed. He liked 
to put all sorts of things that pleased him upon his 
head, calling them huta. Out of the huta, for "I 
should like to have that as a hat," grew, then, after fre- 
quent repetition, "I should like that." There was in 
this case an extension of the narrower concept, after it 
had itself experienced previously a differentiation, and 
so a limitation, by means of the suffix ass. These ex- 
amples show how independent of words the formation 
of concepts is. "With the smallest stock of words the 
concepts are yet manifold, and are designated by the 
same word when there is a lack of words for the com- 
position of new words, and so for fresh word-formation. 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 93 

The formation of words out of interjections without 
imitation lias not been observed. Here belongs the 
rollu, rollolo, nttered by my boy, of his own accord, on 
seeing rolling balls or wheels ; and (in the twentieth 
month) rodi, otto, rojo, where the rotation perceived by 
the child occasions at once the one or the other exclama- 
tion containing I or r. In the case of Stein thai, it was 
lu-lulu; in the case of a boy a year and a half old, ob- 
served by Kussmaul, it was golloh. In these cases the 
first interjection is always occasioned by a noise, not 
simply by the sight of things rolling without noise. 
The interjection must accordingly be styled imitative. 
A combination of the original — i. e., inborn — interjec- 
tional sounds into syllables and groups of syllables, with- 
out the assistance of members of the family, and with- 
ont imitation, for the purpose of communicating an 
idea, is not proved to exist. 

On the whole, the way in which the child learns to 
speak not merely resembles the way in which he learns 
at a later period to write, but is essentially completely in 
accord with it. Here, too, he makes no new inventions. 
First are drawn strokes and blurs without meaning ; 
then certain strokes are imitated ; then signs of sounds. 
These can not be at once combined into syllables, and 
even after the combination has been achieved and the 
written word can be made from the syllables it is not 
yet understood. Yet the child could see, even before 
the first instruction in writing or the first attempt at 
scribbling, every individual letter in the dimensions in 
which he writes it later. So, too, the speechless child 
hears every sound before he understands syllables and 
words, and he understands them before he can speak 



94 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

tliem. The child commonly learns reading before 
writing, and so understands the sign he is to write be- 
fore he can write it. Yet the sign written by himself is 
often just as unintelligible to him as the word he himself 
speaks. The analogy is perfect. 

If the first germs of words, after ideas have begun 
to become clear by means of keener perception, are 
once formed, then the child fashions them of his own 
effort, and this often with surprising distinctness ; but 
in the majority of cases the words are mutilated. In 
the first category belongs the comparative Tiocher for 
holier in the sentence Tiocher oauen (build higher) ! (in 
the third year uttered as a request when playing with 
building-stones). The understanding of the compara- 
tive is plainly manifest in this. When, therefore, the 
same child in his fifth year, to the improper question, 
" Whom do you like better, papa or mamma ? " answers, 
" Papa and mamma," we should not infer a lack of that 
understanding, as many do (e. g., Heyfelder) ; but the 
decision is impossible to the child. Just so in the case 
of the question, " Would you rather have the apple or 
the pear ? " 

Other inventions of my child were the verb messen 
for "mit dem Messer schneiden" (to cut with the 
knife) ; sehiffem, i. e., " das Schiff bewegen " (move 
the ship), for " rudern," (row). And the preference of 
the weak inflection on the part of all children is a proof 
that after the appropriation of a small number of 
words through imitation, independent — always logical — 
changes of formation are undertaken. Gegeot, gegeht, 
getrinkt (gived, goed, drinked), have never been heard 
by the child ; but "gewebt, geweht, gewinkt " (as in Eng- 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 95 

lish, waved, wafted, beckoned), have been known to him 
as models (or other formations corresponding to these). 
Yet this is by no means to say that every mutilation or 
transformation the child proposes is a copy after an er- 
roneously selected model ; rather the child's imagina- 
tion has a wide field here and acts in manifold fashion, 
especially by combinations. " My teeth-roof pains me," 
said a boy who did not yet know the word " palate." 
Another in his fourth year called the road (Weg) the 
"go" (Grehe). A child of three years used the ex- 
pression, "Just grow me" (wachs mich einmaV) for 
"Just see how I have grown" (Sieh einmal wie ich 
gewachsen bin) (Lindner). Such creations of the child- 
ish faculty of combination, arising partly, through blend- 
ing, partly through transference, are collected in a neat 
pamphlet, " Zur Philosophic der Kindersprache," by 
Agathon Keber, 1868. The most of them, however, 
are from a later time of life than that here treated of. 
So it is with the two " heretical " utterances communi- 
cated by Rosch. A child said unterblatte (under-leaf) 
for " Oblate," because he saw the wafer (Oblate) slipped 
under the leaf of paper (Blatt) ; and he called the 
"American chair," " Herr - Decaner - chair," because 
somebody who was called "Herr Decan" used to sit 
in it. Here may be seen the endeavor to put into the 
acoustic impression not understood a meaning. These 
expressions are not inventions, but they are evidence of 
intellect. They can not, of course, appear in younger 
children without knowledge of words, because they are 
transformations of words. 

On the other hand it is of the greatest importance 
for the understanding of the first stage of the use of 



96 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

words in their real significance, after the acquirement 
of them has once begun, to observe how many different 
ideas the child announces by one and the same verbal 
expression. Here are some examples : Tuhl (for Stuhl, 
chair) signifies — 1. " My chair is gone " ; 2. " The chair 
is broken"; 3. "I want to be lifted into the chair"; 
4. " Here is a chair." The child (Steinthal's) says (in 
the twenty-second month), when he sees or hears a bark- 
ing dog, belli (barks), and thinks he has by that word 
designated the whole complex phenomenon, the sight- 
perception of the dog and of a particular dog, and the 
sound-perception ; but he says belli also when he merely 
hears the dog. No doubt the memory-image of the 
dog he has seen is then revived for him. 

Through this manifold significance of a word, which 
is a substitute for a whole sentence, is exhibited a much 
higher activity of the intellect than appears in the mu- 
tilation and new formation of words having but one 
meaning to designate a sense-impression, for, although 
in the latter is manifested the union of impressions into 
perceptions and also of qualities into concepts, wherein 
an unconscious judgment is involved, yet a clear judg- 
ment is not necessarily connected with them. The 
union of concepts into conscious clear judgments is rec- 
ognized rather in the formation of a sentence, no matter 
whether this is expressed by one word or by several words. 

- In connection with this an error must be corrected 

that is wide-spread. It consists in the assumption that 
all children begin to speak with nouns, and that these 
are followed by verbs. This is by no means the case. 
The child daily observed by me used an adjective for 
the first time in the twenty-third month in order to ex- 



LEARNING TO SPEAK. 97 

press a judgment, the first one expressed in the language 
of those about him. He said "hot" for " The milk is 
too hot." In general, the appropriation and employ- 
ment of words for the first formation of sentences de- 
pends, in the first instance, upon the action of the adults 
in the company of the child. A good example of this 
is furnished by an observation of Lindner, whose daugh- 
ter in her fourteenth month first begged with her hands 
for a piece of apple, upon which the word "apple " was 
distinctly pronounced to her. After she had eaten the 
apple she repeated the request, re-enforcing her gesture 
this time by the imitated sound ajym, and her request 
was again granted. Evidently encouraged by her suc- 
cess, the child from that time on used apjpn for " eat, I 
want to eat," as a sign of her desire to eat in general, 
because those about her " accepted this signification and 
took the word stamped by her upon this concept for 
current coin, else it would very likely have been, lost." 
This also confirms my statement (p. 85) that a child 
easily learns to speak with logical correctness with 
wrong words. He also speaks like the deaf-mute with 
logical correctness with quite a different arrangement 
of words from that of his speech of a later period. Thus 
the child just mentioned, in whom " the inclination to 
form sentences was manifest from the twenty-second 
month," said, " hat die Olga getrinkt," when she had 
drunk! 

.jBut every child learns at first not only the language 
I of those in whose immediate daily companionship he 
grows up, but also at first the peculiarities of these per- 
sons. He imitates the accent, intonation, dialect, as 
well as the word, so that a Thuringian child may be 



98 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

surely distinguished from a Mecklenburg child even in 
the second and third year, and, at the same time, we 
may recognize the peculiarities of the speech of its 
mother or nurse, with whom it has most intercourse. 
This phenomenon, the persistence of dialects and of 
peculiarities of speech in single families, gives the im- 
pression, on a superficial observation, of being some- 
thing inherited ; whereas, in fact, nothing is inherited 
beyond the voice through inheritance of the organic 
peculiarities of the mechanism of phonation. For every- 
thing else completely disappears when a child learns to 
speak from his birth in a foreign community. 

Hereditary we may, indeed, call the characteristic 
of humanity, speech ; hereditary, also, is articulation in 
man, and the faculty of acquiring any articulate lan- 
guage is innate. But beyond this the tribal influence 
does not reach. If the possibility of learning to speak 
words phonetically is wanting because ear or tongue 
refuses, then another language comes in as a substitute 
— that of looks, gestures, writing, tactile images — then 
not Broca's center, but another one is generated. So 
that the question whether a speech-center already exists 
in the alalic child must be answered in the negative ; the 
center is formed only when the child hears speech, and, 
if he does not hear speech, no center is developed. In 
this case the ganglionic cells of the posterior third of 
the third frontal convolution are otherwise employed, 
or they suffer atrojDhy. In learning to speak, on the 
contrary, there is a continuous development, first of the 
sound-center, then of the syllable- center, then of the 
word-center and the dictorium. The brain grows, 
through its own activity. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 99 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FIRST SOUNDS AND BEGINNINGS OF SPEECH IN THE CASE 
OF A CHILD OBSERVED DAILY DURING HIS FLRST 
THREE YEARS. 

The observations bearing upon the acquirement of 
speech recorded by me in the case of my boy from the 
day of his birth, the 23d of November, 1877, are here 
presented, so far as they appear worthy of being com- 
municated, in chronological order. They are intended 
to serve as authenticated documents. 

The points to which the attention is to be directed 
in these observations are determined by the organic con- 
ditions of the acquirement of speech, which have been 
treated previously. First, the expressive processes, next 
the impressive, last the central processes, claim the atten- 
tion. (1) To the expressive beginnings of speech belongs 
the sum total of the inarticulate sounds — crying, whim- 
pering, grunting, cooing, squealing, crowing, laughing, 
shouting (for joy), modulation of the voice, smacking, 
and many others, but also the silent movement of the 
tongue ; further, articulation, especially before imitation 
begins ; the formation of sound, and so the gradual per- 
fecting of the vowels, aspirates, and consonants ; at the 
same time the forming of syllables. The last is espe- 
cially easy to follow in the babbling monologues of the 
infant, which are often very long. The reduplication 
of syllables, accentuation, and inflection, whispering, 
singing, etc., belong likewise here. (2) The impressive 
processes are discerned in the looks and gestures of the 



100 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

child as yet speechless ; later, the ability to discriminate 
in regard to words and noises, and the connection of the 
ear with the speech-center, are discerned in the first imi- 
tations of sounds and in the repeating after others — 
i. e., in word-imitation. Here belong also the onomato- 
poetic attempts of children, which are simply a sort of 
imitation. Later, are added to these the answers to 
simple spoken questions, these answers being partly in- 
terjectional, partly articulate, joined into syllables, words, 
and then sentences. The understanding of words heard 
is announced especially by the first listening, by the 
association of certain movements with certain sound- 
impressions, and of motionless objects with other sound- 
impressions, before speaking begins. Hereby (3) the 
central processes are already shown to be in existence. 
The childish logic, especially induction from too few 
particulars, the mutilation of words reproduced, the 
wrong applications of expressions correctly repeated, the 
confounding of opposites in the verbal designation of 
concepts of the child's own formation, offer an abun- 
dance of noteworthy facts for the genesis of mind. More- 
over, the memory for sounds and words, the imagina- 
tion, especially in filling out, as well as the first acts 
of judging, the forming of propositions, questioning — 
all these are to be considered. As for the order in 
which the separate classes of words appear, the training 
in learning-by-heart, speculations as to which spoken 
word is first perfectly understood, to these matters I 
have paid less attention, for the reason that here the dif- 
ferences in the child's surroundings exert the greatest 
influence. My report must, in any event, as a rough 
draft of the history of the development of language in 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE TEARS. 101 

the child, be very imperfect. It, however, contains 
nothing but perfectly trustworthy matter of my own 
observation. 

During the first weeks the child often cried long 
and vigorously from discomfort. If one were to try to 
represent by written vowels the screaming sounds, these 
would most nearly resemble, in the majority of cases, a 
short u (oo in book), with a very quickly following pro- 
longed a (ai in fair) ; thus, ua, ua, ua, ud, were the first 
sounds that may be approximately expressed. They 
were uttered after the lapse of ~Q.ye months exactly as at 
the beginning, only more vigorously. All the other 
vowel-sounds were at first undefined. 

Notwithstanding this uniformity in the vowel- 
sounds, the sounds of the voice are so varied, even 
within the first five weeks, that it may be told with 
certainty from these alone whether the child feels hun- 
ger or pain or pleasure. Screaming with the eyes firmly 
closed in hunger, whimpering in slight indisposition, 
laughing at bright objects in motion, the peculiar grunt- 
ing sounds which at a later period are joined with ab- 
dominal pressure and with lively arm-movements, as the 
announcement of completed digestion and of wetness 
(retained for the first of these states even into the seven- 
teenth month), are manifold acoustic expressions of vi- 
tality, and are to be looked upon as the first forerunners 
of future oral communication, in contrast with the loud- 
sounding reflex movements of sneezing and of hiccough, 
and with the infrequent snoring, snuffling (in sucking), 
and other loud expirations observed in the first days, 
which have just as little linguistic value as have cough- 
ing and the later clearing of the throat. 
10 



102 THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

The voice is very powerful as early as the sixth day, 
especially when it announces feelings of discomfort. 
Screaming is much more frequent, persistent, and vigor- 
ous also when diluted cow's milk is given instead of 
that from the breast. If one occupies himself longer 
than usual with the infant (in the first two months), the 
child is afterward more inclined to cry, and cries then 
(as in the case of hunger) quite differently from what 
he does when giving notice of something unpleasant — 
e. g., wetness. Directly upon his being made dry, the 
crying ceases, as now a certain contentment is attained. 
On the other hand, the inclination to cry serves very 
early (certainly from the tenth week on) as a sign of 
well-being (or increase in the growth of the muscles). 
At least a prolonged silence at this season is wont to be 
connected with slight ailment. But it is to be remarked 
that during the whole period no serious illness, lasting 
more than one day, occurred. 

On the forty-third day I heard the first consonant. 
The child, in a most comfortable posture, uttering all 
sorts of obscure sounds, said once distinctly am-ma. Of 
vowels, ao was likewise heard on that day. But, on the 
following day, the child surprised me and others by the 
syllables, spoken with perfect distinctness, ta-hu. 

On the forty-sixth day, in the otherwise unintelligi- 
ble babble of the infant, I heard, once each, go (o nearly 
like * in bird), oro, and, five days later, ara. 

In the eighth and ninth weeks, the two utterances, 
orro, arm, became frequent, the 6 and a being pure and 
the r uvular. 

The syllable ma I heard by itself (it was during his 
crying) for the first time on the sixty-fourth clay. But 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 103 

on the following day was sounded, during persistent, 
loud crying, often and distinctly (it returned in like 
manner months after), nei, nei, nei, and once, during 
his babbling, a-omb. 

On the day after, distinctly, once each, la, gvei, aho, 
and, besides, ma again. 

On the sixty-ninth day, the child, when hungry, 
uttered repeatedly and very distinctly, momm and 
ngo. 

Of the syllables earlier spoken, only otto is distinctly 
repeated in the tenth week. On the seventy-first day, 
the child being in the most comfortable condition, there 
comes the new combination, ra-a-ao, and, five days 
later, in a hungry and uncomfortable mood, n'd, and 
then nai-n. 

The manifest sign of contentment was very distinct 
(on the seventy-eighth day) : hdbu, and likewise in the 
twelfth week a-i and iido, as well as a-o-a, alternating 
with d-a-a, and o-d-o. 

It now became more and more difficult to represent 
by letters the sounds, already more varied, and even 
to distinguish the vowels and repeat them accurately. 
The child cries a good deal, as if to exercise his respir- 
atory muscles. To the sounds uttered while the child 
is lying comfortably are added in the fourteenth week 
nto, ha. The last was given with an unsually loud cry, 
with distinct aspiration of the h, though with no indi- 
cation that the child felt any particular pleasure. At 
this period I heard besides repeatedly Id, na, the latter 
along with screaming at disagreeable impressions more 
and more frequently and distinctly; in the fifteenth 
week, nannana* nd-nd, nanna, in refusal. On the 



10 £ THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

other hand, the earlier favorite drro has not been heard 
at all for some weeks. 

Screaming while waiting for his food to be prepared 
(milk and water) or for the nurse, who had not suffi- 
cient nourishment for the child, is marked, in the 
sixteenth week — as is also screaming on account of un- 
pleasant feelings — in general by predominance of the 
vowels, d-u, d-u d, d-u, d-u, u-d, u-d, u-ib-d-o, but mean- 
time is heard amme-a, and as a sign of special discom- 
fort the persistent ill-sounding ud-ud-ud-ud (u=Eng. oo). 

Screaming in the first five months expresses itself in 
the main by the vowels u, d, o, a, with u and o occur- 
ring more seldom, and without other consonants, for 
the most part, than m. 

In the fifth month no new consonants were devel- 
oped except h / but a merely passive go, Jed, aggeggeko, 
the last more rarely than the first, was heard with per- 
fect distinctness during the child's yawning. 

"While in this case the ^-sound originates passively, 
it was produced, in connection with o, evidently by the 
position of the tongue, when the child was in a con- 
tented frame, as happens in nursing ; ogo was heard in 
the twenty-second week, as well as ma-o-e, ha, a, ho-ich. 
The i here appeared more distinct than in the third 
month. The soft ch, which sounded like the g in 
" Honig," was likewise quite distinct. 

About this time began the amusing loud " crowing " 
of the child, an unmistakable expression of pleasure. 
The strong aspirate sound ha, and this sound united 
with the labial r in hrrr-hd, corresponding in force to 
the voice, which had become exceptionally powerful, 
must likewise be regarded as expressions of pleasure. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 105 

So with the sounds aja, orrgo, ci-a-i-d-d, which, the 
child toward the end of the first half-year utters as if 
for his own gratification as he lies in comfort. With 
these belongs also the frequently repeated " eu " of the 
French " heure," and the " ceu " of the French 
" cceur," which is not found in the German language, 
also the primitive sounds a and o (German). The lips 
contract very regularly, and are protruded equally in 
the transition from a to o. I heard also ija cried out 
by the child in very gay mood. In the babbling and 
crowing continued often for a long time without inter- 
ruption, consonants are seldom uttered, pure vowels, 
with the exception of a, less often than a and o ; i and 
u are especially rare. 

"When the child lies on his back, he moves his arms 
and legs in a lively manner even without any external 
provocation. He contracts and expands all the muscles 
he can command, among these especially the muscles of 
the larynx, of the tongue, and of the aperture of the 
mouth. In the various movements of the tongue made 
at random it often happens that the mouth is partly or 
entirely closed. Then the current of air that issues 
forth in breathing bursts the barrier and thus arise 
many sounds, among them some that do not exist in 
the German language, e. g., frequently and distinctly, 
by means of labio-lingual stoppage, a consonant- sound 
between p and t or between h and d, in the production 
of which the child takes pleasure, as he does also in 
the labial hrr and m. By far the greater part of the 
consonant-sounds produced by the exercises of the 
tongue and lips can not be represented in print ; just as 
the more prolonged and more manifold movements of 



106 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the extremities, movements made by the child when he 
has eaten his fill, and is not sleepy and is left to him- 
self, can not be drawn or described. It is noteworthy 
that all the utterances of sound are expiratory. I 
have not once observed an attempt to form sounds while 
drawing in the breath. 

In the seventh month the child at one time screamed 
piercingly, in very high tones, from pain. When hun- 
gry and desiring milk, he said with perfect distinctness, 
ma, a, ua, uae / when contented he would say orro too, 
as at an earlier period. The screaming was sometimes 
kept up with great vigor until the child began to be 
hoarse, in case his desire, e. g., to leave his bed, was not 
granted. When the child screams with hunger, he 
draws the tongue back, shortens it and thereby broadens 
it, making loud expirations with longer or shorter in- 
tervals. In pain, on the other hand, the screaming is 
uninterrupted and the tones are higher than in any 
other screaming. During the screaming I heard the 
rare I distinctly in the syllable Id. The vowels Vrd-u-i-i 
also appeared distinctly, all as if coming by accident, 
and not often pure. The t also was seldom heard ; f, s, 
sch, st, sp, sm, ts, ks, w, not once yet; on the other 
hand, b, d, m, n, f, often ; g, h, more seldom ; Jc, only in 
yawning ; p, but very rarely, both in screaming and in 
the child's babble to himself or in response to friendly 
address. 

In the eighth month the screaming sounds were for 
the most part different from what they had been ; the dis- 
agreeable screaming no longer so intense and prolonged, 
from the time that the food of the child consisted exclu- 
sively of pap (Kindermehl) and water. Single vowels, 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 107 

like u and &, are very often not to be heard pure. Often 
the child does not move the lips at all when with mouth 
shut he lifts and drops the larynx, and with eager desire 
for the pap howls ; or coos like a dove, or grunts. The 
prattling monologues become longer when the child is 
alone, lying comfortably in bed. But definite consonants 
can only with difficulty be distinguished in them, with 
the exception of r in the orro, which still continues to 
be uttered, though rarely and unintentionally. Once the 
child, while in the bath, cried out as if yawning, hd-upp, 
and frequently, when merry, a-ei, a-au, d-hau-d, horro. 
"When he babbles contentedly in this manner, he moves 
the tongue quickly, both symmetrically, e. g., raising 
the edges equally, and asymmetrically, thrusting it for- 
ward to right or left. He often also puts out the tongue 
between the lips and draws it back during expira- 
tion, producing thereby the before-mentioned labio-lin • 
gual explosive sounds. I also heard nte-o, mi-ja, mija 
(j like Eng. y), and once distinctly oudei. 

In the ninth month it is still difficult to recognize 
definite syllables among the more varied utterances of 
sound. But the voice, often indeed very loud and inar- 
ticulate, is already more surely modulated as the ex- 
pression of psychical states. "When the child, e. g., 
desires a new, especially a bright object, he not only 
stretches both arms in the direction of it, indicating the 
direction by his gaze, but also makes known, by the 
same sound he makes before taking his food, that he 
wants it. This complex combination of movements of 
eye, larynx, tongue, lips, and arm-muscles appears now 
more and more ; and we can recognize in his scream- 
ing the desire for a change of position, discomfort 



108 THE MIND OF THE CIIXLD. 

(arising from wet, heat, cold), anger, and pain. The 
last is announced by screaming with the mouth in the 
form of a square and by higher pitch. But delight at 
a friendly expression of face also expresses itself by 
high crowing sounds, only these are not so high and are 
not continued long. Yiolent stretchings of arms and 
legs accompany (in the thirty-fourth week first) the 
joyous utterance. Coughing, almost a clearing of the 
throat, is very rare. Articulate utterances of pleasure, 
e. g., at music, are ma-ma, dm-md, ma. 

Meantime the lip-movements of the m were made 
without the utterance of sound, as if the child had per- 
ceived the difference. Other expressions of sound with- 
out assignable cause are d-au-d-a, d-d, a-u-au, na-na, the 
latter not with the tone of denial as formerly, and often 
repeated rapidly in succession. As separate utterances 
in comfortable mood, besides orr'6 came apa, gaau-a, 
acha. 

The tenth month is marked by the increasing dis- 
tinctness of the syllables in the monologues, which are 
more varied, louder, and more prolonged when the child 
is left to himself than when any one tries to entertain 
him. Of new syllables are to be noted ndae, bde-bde, 
ba ell, arro. 

From the forty-second week on, especially the sylla- 
bles ma and pappa, tatta, appapa, labia, tdtd, pa, are 
frequently uttered, and the uvular rrrr, rrra, are re- 
peated unweariedly. The attempts to make the child 
repeat syllables pronounced to him, even such syllables 
as he has before spoken of his own accord, all fail. In 
place of tatta he says, in the most favorable instance, td 
or ata ; but even here there is progress, for in the pre- 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 1Q9 

vious month even these hints at imitating or even re- 
sponding to sound were almost entirely lacking. 

In the eleventh month some syllables emphatically 
pronounced to the child were for the first time correctly 
repeated. I said " ada " several times, and the attentive 
child, after some ineffectual movements of the lips, re- 
peated correctly ada, which he had for that matter often 
said of his own accord long before. But this single 
repetition was so decided that I was convinced that the 
sound-imitation was intentional. It was the first un- 
questionable sound-imitation. It took place on the three 
hundred and twenty -ninth day. The same day when I 
said "mamma," the response was nanna. In general, 
it often happens, when something is said for imitation, 
and the child observes attentively my lips, that evident 
attempts are made at imitation ; but for the most part 
something different makes its appearance, or else a silent 
movement of the lips. 

In the forty-fifth week everything said to the child, 
in case it received his attention, was responded to with 
movements of lips and tongue, which gave the impres- 
sion of being made at random and of serving rather for 
diversion. 

Further, at this period the child begins during his 
long monologues to whisper. He produces sounds in 
abundance, varying in force, pitch, and timbre, as if he 
were speaking an unknown tongue ; and some single 
syllables may gradually be more easily distinguished, al- 
though the corresponding positions of the mouth pass 
into one another, sometimes quite gradually, sometimes 
rapidly. The following special cases I was able to es- 
tablish by means of numerous observations : 



HO THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

In crying rrra, there is a vibration on both sides of 
the edges of the tongue, which is bent to a half -cylinder 
with the ridge upward. In this way the child produces 
three kinds of r-sounds — the labial, the uvular, and this 
bilateral-lingual. 

New syllables of this period are ta-hee, dann-tee, aa- 
nee, nga, tai, ha, dall, at-tall, hamm, akkee, pra'i-jer, 
tra, a-hee. Among them tra and pra are noteworthy 
as the first combination of t and p with r. The surpris- 
ing combinations attall and akTcee and praijer, which 
made their appearance singly without any occasion that 
could be noticed, like others, are probably the first at- 
tempts to reproduce the child's own name (Axel Preyer) 
from memory. Of earlier sounds, syllables, and combi- 
nations of these, the following are especially frequent : 
Mammam, apapa, orr'6, papa, tata, tatta, naa, rrra, 
pata, m?nm, na, a, a, au, anna, attapa, dadada, ja, ja- 
ja, eja, jae. The last syllables are distinguished by the 
distinct e, which is now more frequent. 

All the pains taken to represent a babbling mono- 
logue perfectly by letters were fruitless, because these 
distinct and oft-repeated syllables alternated with indis- 
tinct loud and soft ones. Still, on the whole, of the 
consonants the most frequent at this period are b, p, t, 
d, m, n, and the new r / I, g, h, not rare. Of vowels 
the a has a decided preponderance. Both u and o are 
rare ; i very rare. Yet a vowel is not repeated, either 
by itself or in a syllable, more than five times in succes- 
sion without an interval. Commonly it is twice or three 
times. I have also noticed that the mechanical repeti- 
tion of the same syllable, e. g., papapa, occurs far more 
often than the alternation of a distinctly spoken syllable 



SPEECH IN TIIE FIRST THREE YEARS. m 

witli another distinctly spoken one, like jpata. In the 
mean time it is certain that the child during his various 
movements of lips and tongue, along with contraction 
and expansion of the opening of the mouth, readily 
starts with surprise when he notices such a change 
of acoustic effect. It seems as if he were himself 
taking pleasure in practicing regularly all sorts of 
symmetrical and asymmetrical positions of the mouth, 
sometimes in silence, sometimes with loud voice, then 
again with soft voice. In the combinations of sylla- 
bles, moreover, palpable accentuation somewhat like 
this, wppdpapa atdtata, is by no means frequent. The 
surprisingly often repeated dadada has generally no 
accent. 

With regard to the question whether in this period, 
especially important for the development of the appara- 
tus of speech, any articulate utterance of sound stands 
in firm association with an idea, I have observed the 
child under the most varied circumstances possible with- 
out disturbing him; but I have ascertained only one 
such case with certainty. The atta, hodda, hatta, hata% 
showed itself to be associated with the perception that 
something disappeared, for it was uttered when some 
one left the room, when the light was extinguished, and 
the like ; also, to be sure, sometimes when such remark- 
able changes were not discoverable. Thus, the eleventh 
month ends without any other indubitable firm associa- 
tion of articulation and idea. 

In the next four weeks, up to the end of the first 
year of life, there was no progress in this respect to 
record ; but, from this time on, an eager desire — e. g., 
for a biscuit seen, but out of reach — was regularly an- 



112 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

nounced by a-na, a-nananana, uttered loudly and with 
an expression of indescribable longing. 

The attempts at imitation, too, are somewhat more 
successful, especially the attention is more strained. 
When, e. g., in the fifty-first week, I sang something 
for the child, he gazed fixedly more than a minute, with 
immovable countenance, without winking, at my mouth, 
and then moved his own tongue. Correct repetition of 
a syllable pronounced to him is, however, very rare. 
When I laugh, and the child observes it, he laughs like- 
wise, and then crows, with strong abdominal pressure. 
This same loud expression of joy is exhibited when the 
child unexpectedly sees his parents at a distance. This 
peculiar pressure, with strong expiration, is in general 
associated with feelings of pleasure. The child almost 
seems to delight in the discovery of his own abdominal 
pressure, when he produces by means of it the very 
high crowing sounds with the vowel i or a genuine 
grunt. 

Of articulate sounds, syllables, and combinations, 
made without suggestion from others in the twelfth 
month, I have caught the following particularly with 
accuracy : haja, jajajajaja, aja, njaja, na'in-hopp, ha-a, 
jpa-a, dewar, han-na, momma, allda, allda'i, apa-u-a, 
gaga, ha, ladn. Besides, the earlier atta variously 
modified ; no longer dada. 

More important than such almost meaningless sound- 
formations, among which, by the way, appears for the 
first time w, is the now awakened ability to discrimi- 
nate between words heard. The child turns around 
when his name is spoken in a loud voice ; he does this, 
it is true, at other loud sounds also, but then with a dif- 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. H3 

ferent expression. When lie hears a new tone, a new 
noise, he is surprised, opens his eyes wide, and holds 
his month open, without moving. 

By frequent repetition of the words, " Give the 
hand," with the holding out of the haud, I have brought 
the child, in the fifty-second week, to the point of obey- 
ing this command of himself — a sure proof that he dis- 
tinguishes words heard. Another child did the same 
thing in the seventh month. In this we can not fail to 
see the beginning of communication by means of ordi- 
nary language, but this remained a one-sided affair till 
past the third half-year, the child being simply recep- 
tive. During this whole period, moreover, from birth 
on, special sounds, particularly "sch (Eng., sh), ss, st, 
pst," just the ones not produced by the child, had a re- 
markable effect of a quieting character. If the child 
heard them when he was screaming, he became quiet, 
as when he heard singing or instrumental music. 

In the first weeks of the second year of life, the 
child behaves just as awkwardly as ever in regard to 
saying anything that is said to him, but his attention 
has become more lively. When anything is said to him 
for him to say — e. g., papa, mama, atta, tatta — he 
looks at the speaker with eyes wide open and mouth 
half open, moves the tongue and the lips, often very 
slightly, often vigorously, but can not at the same time 
make his voice heard, or else he says, frequently with 
an effort of abdominal pressure, atta'i. Earlier, even 
in the forty-fifth week, he had behaved in much the 
same way, but to the word " papa," pronounced to him, 
he had responded rrra. Once only, I remember, papa 
was repeated correctly, in a faint tone, on the three 



114 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

hundred and sixty-ninth day, almost as by one in a 
dream. "With this exception, no word could be repeated 
on command, notwithstanding the fact that the faculty 
of imitation was already active in another department. 
The syllables most frequently uttered at this stage were 
nja, njan, dada, atta, mama, jpapa'i, atta'i, na-na-na, 
hatta, meene-meene-meene, momm, momma, ao-u. 

Of these syllables, na-na regularly denotes a desire, 
and the arms are stretched out in connection with it ; 
mama is referred to the mother perhaps in the fifty- 
fourth week, on account of the pleasure she shows at the 
utterance of these syllables, but they are also repeated 
mechanically without any reference to her; atta is ut- 
tered now and then at going away, but at other times 
also, His joy — e. g., at recognizing his mother at a dis- 
tance — the child expresses by crowing sounds, which 
have become stronger and higher than they were, but 
which can not be clearly designated ; the nearest approach 
to a representation of them is ahija. Affirmation and 
negation may already be recognized by the tone of voice 
alone. The signification of the cooing and the grunting 
sounds remains the same. The former indicates desire 
of food; the latter the need of relieving the bowels. 
As if to exercise the vocal cords, extraordinarily high 
tones are now produced, which may be regarded as 
signs of pleasure in his own power. An imperfect lan- 
guage has thus already been formed imperceptibly, al- 
though no single object is as yet designated by a sound 
assigned to it alone. The articulation has made prog- 
ress, for on the three hundred and sixty-eighth day 
appeared the first distinct s, in the syllable ssi ; quite 
incidentally, to be sure. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. H5 

The most important advance consists in the now 
awakened understanding of spoken words. The ability 
to learn, or the capability of being trained, has emerged 
almost as if it had come in a night. 

For it did not require frequent repetition of the 
question, " How tall is the child ? " along with holding 
up his arms, in order to make him execute this move- 
ment every time that he heard the words, " Wie gross ? " 
(" How tall ? ") or " ooss," nay, even merely " oo." It 
was easy, too, to induce him to take an ivory ring, lying 
before him attached to a thread, into his hand, and reach 
it to me prettily when I held out my hand and said, 
" Where is the ring ? " and, after it had been grasped, 
said, "Give." In the same way, the child holds the 
biscuit, which he is carrying to his mouth, to the lips 
of the person who says pleasantly to him, " Give " ; and 
he has learned to move his head sidewise hither and 
thither when he hears " No, no." If we say to him, 
when he wants food or an object he has seen, " Bitte, 
bitte " (say " Please "), he puts his hands together in a 
begging attitude, a thing which seemed at first some- 
what hard for him to learn. Finally, he had at this 
time been taught to respond to the question, " Where 
is the little rogue ? " by touching the side of his head 
with his hand (a movement he had often made of him- 
self before). 

From this it appears beyond a doubt that now 
(rather late in comparison with other children) the as- 
sociation of words heard with certain movements is es- 
tablished, inasmuch as upon acoustic impressions — at 
least upon combined impressions of hearing and of sight, 
which are repeated in like fashion — like movements 



116 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

follow, and indeed follow invariably with the expres- 
sion of great satisfaction on the countenance. Yet this 
connection between the sensorium and the motorium is 
not yet stable, for there follows not seldom upon a com- 
mand distinctly uttered, and without doubt correctly 
understood, the wrong movement — paramimy. Upon 
the question, " How tall ? " the hands are put together 
for " Please," and the like. Once when I said, " How 
tall ? " the child raised his arms a moment, then struck 
himself on the temples, and thereupon put his hands 
together, as if " rogue," and then "please," had been 
said to him. All three movements followed with the 
utmost swiftness, while the expression of face was that 
of a person confused, with wavering look. Evidently 
the child haA forgotten which movement belonged with 
the " tall," and performed all the three tricks he had 
learned, confounding them one with another. This 
confounding of arm-raising, head-shaking, giving of the 
ring, putting the hands together, touching the head, is 
frequent. It is also to be noticed that some one of these 
five tricks is almost invariably performed bj the child 
when some new command is given to him that he does 
not understand, as he perceives that something is re- 
quired of him — the first conscious act of obedience, as 
yet imperfect. 

In the fourteenth month there was no great increase 
in the number of independent utterances of sound that 
can be represented by syllables of the German language. 
Surprising visual impressions, like the brilliant Christ- 
mas-tree, and the observation of new objects, drew 
from the pleasurably excited child, without his having 
touched anything, almost the same sounds that he at 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS, H7 

other times made when in discontented mood, ud, mud, 
only softer ; momo and mama, and also papa are fre- 
quent expressions of pleasure. When the child is 
taken away, he often says ta-ta loudly, also, aita in a 
whisper. There can no longer be a doubt that in these 
syllables is now expressed simply the idea of " going." 
The labial hrrr, the so-called " coachman's JR" was 
practiced by the child, of his own accord, with special 
eagerness, and indeed was soon pronounced so cleverly 
that educated adults can not produce it in such purity 
and especially with so* prolonged an utterance. The 
only new word is dakku and daggn, which is often ut- 
tered pleasantly with astonishing rapidity, in moments 
of enjoyment, e. g., when the child is eating food that 
tastes good. But it is also uttered so often without 
any assignable occasion, that a definite meaning can 
hardly be attributed to it, unless it be that of satisfac- 
tion. For it is never heard when the least thing of a 
disagreeable sort has happened to the child. The 
probability is obvious that we have here a case of imita- 
tion of the " Thanks " (Danke) which he has not sel- 
dom heard. But the modifications taggn, attagn, at- 
tain, pass over into the word, undoubtedly the original 
favorite, tai, ata'i. 

Among all the indistinct and distinct sounds of the 
babbling monologues, no inspiratory ones appeared at 
this time either ; but such did make their appearance 
now and then, in a passive manner, in swallowing and 
in the coughing that followed. 

I spent much time in trying to get the child to 

repeat vowels and syllables pronounced to him, but 

always without special success. When I said plainly 
11 



118 THE MIXI) 0F THE CHILD. 

to him " pa-pa-pa," he answered loudly ta-ta'i, or with 
manifest effort and a vigorous straining, t-ta'i, k-ta'i, at- 
tdi, hatta'i, and the same when " ma-ma " was said for 
him by any one, no matter whom. He also moved lips 
and tongue often, as if trying to get the sound in vari- 
ous ways ; as if the will of the child, as he attentively 
observed the mouth of the speaker, were present, but 
not the ability to reproduce the sound-impression. 
Evidently he is taking pains to repeat what he has 
heard; and he laughs at the unsuccessful effort, if 
others laugh over it. The earliest success is with the 
repetition of the vowels " a-u-o," but this is irregular 
and inaccurate. 

In contrast with these halting performances stands 
the precise, parrot-like repetition of such syllables as 
the child had uttered of his own accord, and which I 
had immediately after pronounced to him. Thus attdi, 
ta'i, atta, were often easily and correctly repeated, but, 
strangely enough, frequently in a whisper. The a-e, 
d-d, a-e, accompanied by oscillatory movements of the 
hand, when imitated directly by me was also produced 
again ; in like manner, regularly, the ddfckn, but this 
course did not succeed in the case of other primitive 
syllables or words, even under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances : here it is to be borne in mind that the 
last-named utterances were precisely the most frequent 
at this period. "When he was requested with emphasis 
to say papa, mama, tata, he would bring out one of 
the tricks he had been taught in the previous month ; 
among others, that of moving the head to one side and 
the other as if in negation ; but this it could not be, for 
this significance of the gesture was wholly unknown to 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. H9 

Lim at that time. Rather had the child received the 
impression from my voice that he was to do something 
that he was bidden, and he did what was easy to him 
just at the moment, " mechanically," without knowing 
which of the movements that he had learned was re- 
quired (cf. p. 116). 

In regard to the understanding of words heard, 
several points of progress are to be noted; above all 
a change of place in consequence of the question, 
" Where is yonr clothes-press ? " The child, standing 
erect, being held by the hand, at these words turns his 
head and his gaze toward the clothes-press, draws the 
person holding him through the large room by the 
hand, although he can not walk a step alone, and then 
opens the press without assistance. Here, at the begin- 
ning of the fourteenth month, is the idea of a definite 
stationary object associated with a sound heard, and so 
strongly that it is able to produce an independent act 
of locomotion, the first one ; for, although before this 
the clothes-press had often been named and shown, the 
going to it is still the child's own performance. 

It is now a matter of common occurrence that 
other words heard have also a definite relation to ob- 
jects seen. The questions, " "Where is papa ? mamma ? 
the light ? " are invariably answered correctly, after brief 
deliberation, by turning the head (at the word " light," 
occasionally since the ninth month) and the gaze in the 
proper direction, and by lifting the right arm, often also 
the left, to point, the fingers of the outstretched hand 
being at the same time generally spread out. In the 
previous month, only the association of the word mama 
with the appearance of the mother was established. 



120 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

The following are now added to the movements exe- 
cuted upon hearing certain words. The child likes to 
beat with his hands upon the table at which he is sit- 
ting. I said to him, " Play the piano," and made the 
movement after him. Afterward, when I merely said 
the word " piano " to the child (who was at the time 
quiet), without moving my hands, he considered for a 
few seconds, and then beat again with his hands on the 
table. Thus the recollection of the sound was sufficient 
to bring out the movement. Further, the child had ac- 
customed himself, of his own accord, to give a regular 
snort, contracting the nostrils, pursing up the mouth, 
and breathing out through the nose. If now any 
one spoke to him of the " nose," this snorting was sure 
to be made. The word put the centro-motors into a 
state of excitement. The same is true of the command 
" Give ! " since the child reaches out the object he is 
holding or is about to take hold of, in case any one puts 
out the hand or the lips to him. Some weeks ago this 
took place only with the ring and biscuit ; now the 
word " give " has the same effect with any object capa- 
ble of being grasped, but it operates almost like a re- 
flex stimulus, " mechanically," without its being even 
once the case that the act of giving is a purely volun- 
tary act or even occasioned by sympathy. 

In these already learned co-ordinated movements 
made upon hearing the words " Please, How tall ? 
rogue ! no ! piano 1 ring ! give ! " all of which are now 
executed with shorter intervals of deliberation as if by a 
well-trained animal, there is in general absolutely no 
deeper understanding present than that to this and the 
other sound-impression belong this and the other move- 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 121 

ment. By means of daily repetition of both, the time 
required for the production of the movement after the 
excitement of the anditory nerve becomes less and less, 
the doubt as to which movement follows this or that 
sound withdrawing more and more. At last the respon- 
sive movements followed without any remarkable strain 
of attention. They became habitual. 

Now and then, however, the movements are still 
confounded. Upon "no! no!" follows the touching 
of the head ; upon " please," the shaking of the head ; 
upon " rogue," the putting of the hands together, etc. 
These errors become frequent when a new impression 
diverts the attention. They become more and more 
rare through repetition of the right movements made 
for the child to see and through guiding the limbs of 
the child. A further evidence of the increased ability 
to learn toward the end of the month is the fact that 
the hands are raised in the attitude of begging not only 
at the command "Please," but also at the question, 
" How does the good child behave ? " Thus, the expe- 
rience is beginning to become a conscious one that, in 
order to obtain anything, the begging attitude is useful. 

The fifteenth month brought no new definite inde- 
pendent utterances of sound with the exception of wa. 
Sensations and emotions, however, are indicated more 
and more definitely and variously by sounds that are 
inarticulate and sometimes unintelligible. Thus, aston- 
ishment is expressed by Jia-a ed-e ; joy by vigorous 
crowing in very high tones and more prolonged than 
before; further, very strong desire by repeated had, 
hd-e / pain, impatience, by screaming in vowels which 
pass over into one another. 



122 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

The only word that is unquestionably used of the 
child's own motion to indicate a class of perceptions is 
still atta, ha-atta, which during the following month 
also is uttered softly, for the most part, on going out, 
and which signifies "away" or " gone" (weg), and still 
continues to be used also as it was in the eleventh 
month, when a light is dimmed (by a lamp-shade). Be- 
yond this no syllable can be named that marked the 
dawn of mental independence, none that testified to the 
voluntary use of articulate sounds for the purpose of 
announcing perceptions. For the brrr, the frequent 
dakhi, mamam, momo, and papa]), are without signifi- 
cance in the monologues. Even the saying of atta, 
with turning of the head toward the person going away, 
has acquired the meaning of " away " (fort) only through 
being repeatedly said to the child upon his being car- 
ried out ; but no one said the word when the lamp was 
extinguished. Here has been in existence for some 
time not only the formation of the concept, but also the 
designation of the concept by syllables. The similarity 
in the very different phenomena of going away and of 
the dimming of the light, viz., the disappearance of a 
visual impression, was not only discovered, but was named 
by the child entirely independently in the eleventh 
month, and has kept its name up to the present time. 
He has many impressions ; he perceives, he unites quali- 
ties to make concepts. This he has been doing for a long 
time without words ; but only in this one instance does the 
child express one of his concepts in language after a par- 
ticular instance had been thus named for him, and then 
the word he uses is one not belonging to his later language, 
but one that belongs to all children the world over. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 123 

In regard to the repeating of syllables pronounced 
to him a marked advance is noticeable. The child can 
not, indeed, by any means repeat na and pa and o or e 
and le. He answers a, ta'i, ta-a-o-o-a, and practices all 
sorts of tongue- and lip-exercises. But the other sylla- 
bles uttered by him, especially anna, ta'i, dakhn, a, he 
says in response to any one who speaks them distinctly 
to him, and he gives them easily and correctly in parrot 
fashion. If a new word is said to him, e. g., " kalt " 
(cold), which he can not repeat, he becomes vexed, turns 
away his head, and screams, too, sometimes. I have 
been able to introduce into his vocabulary only one naw 
word. In the sixty-third week he seized a biscuit that 
had been dipped in hot water, let it fall, drew clown the 
corners of his mouth, and began to cry. Then I said 
"heiss" (hot), whereupon the child, speedily quieted, 
repeated ha'i and ha'i-s (with a just discernible s). Three 
days later the same experiment was made. After this 
the ha'is, ha'isses, with distinct s, was often heard with- 
out any occasion. Some days later I wanted him to 
say "hand." The child observed my mouth closely, 
took manifest pains, but produced only ha-iss, then 
very distinctly hass with sharp ss, and ha-ith, hadith, 
with the English th • at another time distinctly ha-its. 
Thus, at a time when ts = z can not be repeated, there 
exists the possibility of pronouncing z. When I said 
to him " warm," ass was pronounced with an effort and 
distinctly, although the syllable wa belonged to the 
child's stock of words. This was evidently a recollec- 
tion of the previous attempts to repeat " heiss " and 
"hand." 

Corresponding to this inability to say words after 



124: THE MIND OF THE CHILD, 

another's utterance of them is an articulation as yet very 
imperfect. Still, there is indication of progress in the 
distinctness of the s, the frequent English th with the 
thrusting out of the tip of the tongue between the in- 
cisors, the w 3 which now first appears often, as well as 
in the smacking first heard in the sixty-fifth week (in 
contented mood). The tongue is, when the child is 
awake, more than other muscles that in the adult are 
subject to cerebral volition, almost always in motion 
even when the child is silent. It is in various ways 
partly contracted, extended, bent. The lateral bending 
of the edges of the tongue downward and the turning 
back of the tip of the tongue (from left to right) so that 
the lower surface lies upward, are not easily imitated 
by adults. The mobility of my child's tongue is at any 
rate much greater than that of my tongue, notwith- 
standing the fact that, in consequence of varied practice 
from an early period in rapid speaking, the most diffi- 
cult performances in rapid speaking are still easily exe- 
cuted by mine. The tongue is unquestionably the 
child's favorite plaything. One might almost speak of 
a lingual delirium in his case, as in that of the insane, 
when he pours forth all sorts of disconnected utterances, 
articulate and inarticulate, in confusion ; and yet I often 
saw his tongue affected with fibrillar contractions as if 
the mastery of the hypoglossus were not as yet com- 
plete. Quite similar fibrillar movements seem to be 
made by the tongue in bulbar paralysis, and in the case 
of dogs and guinea-pigs whose hypoglossus has been 
severed. 

To the number of words heard that already produce 
a definite movement are added the following new ones. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 125 

The child is asked, " Where is the moon \ the clock % 
the eye? the nose?" and he raises an arm, spreads the 
lingers, and looks in the proper direction. If I speak 
of " coughing," he coughs ; of " blowing," he blows ; 
of " kicking," he stretches out his legs ; of " light," he 
blows into the air, or, if there is a lamp in sight, toward 
that, looking at it meantime — a reminiscence of the 
blowing out of matches and candles often seen by him. 
It requires great pains to get from him the affirmative 
nod of the head at the spoken " ja, ja." Not till the 
sixty-fourth week was this achieved by means of fre- 
quent repetition and forcible direction, and the move- 
ment was but awkwardly executed even later — months 
after. On hearing the " no, no," the negative shake of 
the head now appeared almost invariably, and this was 
executed as by adults without the least uncertainty. 

The holding out of his hand at hearing " Give the 
hand," occurs almost invariably, but is not to be re- 
garded as a special case of understanding of the syllable 
"give," for the word "hand" alone produces the same 
result. 

All these accomplishments, attained by regular train- 
ing, do not afford the least evidence of an understanding 
of what is commanded when the sound-impression is 
converted into motor impulse. It is rather a matter of 
the establishment of the recollection of the customary 
association of both during the interval of deliberation. 
The words and muscular contractions that belong to- 
gether are less often confounded, and the physiological 
part of the process takes less time, but its duration is 
noticeably prolonged when the child is not quite well. 
He deliberates for as much as twelve seconds when the 



126 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

question is asked him, " "Where is the rogue ? " and then 
responds with the proper gesture (p. 115). 

The sixteenth month brought few new articulate 
utterances of sound, none associated with a definite 
meaning ; on the other hand, there was a marked prog- 
ress in repeating what was said to the child, and espe- 
cially in the understanding of words heard. 

Among the sounds of his own making are heard — 
along with the ha / hd-'o ! ha-e ! he-e ! that even in the 
following months often expresses desire, but often also 
is quite without meaning — more seldom hi, go-go, go, 
f-pa (they for the first time), an, and more frequently 
ta, dolckri, td-ha, a-bwa-bwa, bua-bu-a, and, as if by ac- 
cident, once among all sorts of indefinable syllables, 
dagon. Further, the child — as was the case in the pre- 
vious month — likes to take a newspaper or a book in 
his hands and hold the print before hi& face, babbling 
a-e, a-e, a-e, evidently in imitation of the reading aloud 
which he has often observed. By giving the command, 
" Read ! " it was easy to get this performance repeated. 
Besides this, it is a delight to the child to utter a sylla- 
ble — e. g., bwa or ma — over and over, some six times 
in succession, without stopping. As in the previous 
month, there are still the whispered atto and hatto, at 
the hiding of the face or of the light, at the shutting of 
a fan, or the emptying of a soup-plate, together with 
the dahkn, with the combinations of syllables made out 
of ta, pa, ma, na, at, ap, am, an, and with moin'o. The 
papa and mama do not, however, express an exclusive 
relation to the parents. Only to the questions, " Where 
is papa ? " " "Where is mamma ? " he points toward them, 
raising his hand with the fingers spread. Pain is an- 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 127 

nounced by loud and prolonged screaming; joy by 
short, high-pitched, piercing crowing, in which the 
vowel i appears. 

Of isolated vowels, a only was correctly repeated 
on command. Of syllables, besides those of the pre- 
vious month, mo and ma / and here the child's exces- 
sive gayety over the success of the experiment is worthy 
of remark. He made the discovery that his parrot-like 
repetition was a fresh source of pleasure, yet he could 
not for several weeks repeat again the doubled syllables, 
but kept to the simple ones, or responded with all sorts 
of dissimilar ones, like attob, or said nothing. The syl- 
lable ma was very often given back as homd and homo ; 
pa was never given back, but, as had been the case pre- 
viously, only ta and ta'i were the responses, made with 
great effort and attention, and the visible purpose of 
repeating correctly. To the word " danke," pronounced 
for him with urgency innumerable times, the response 
is dakJcn, given regularly and promptly, and this in the 
following months also. If all persuasion failed, and the 
child were then left to himself without any direction of 
his attention, then not infrequently new imitations of 
sounds would be given correctly— e. g., when I said 
" bo " — but these, again, would no longer succeed when 
called for. Indeed, such attempts often broke down 
utterly at once. Thus the child once heard a hen mak- 
ing a piteous outcry, without seeing the creature, and 
he tried in vain to imitate the sound, but once only, and 
not again. On the other hand, he often succeeds in re- 
peating correctly movements of the tongue made for 
him to see, as the thrusting out of the tongue between 
the lips, by reason of the extraordinary mobility of his 



128 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

tongue and lips ; lie even tries to smack in imitation. 
The more frequent partial contractions of the tongue, 
without attempts at speaking, are especially surprising. 
On one side, toward the middle of the tongue, rises a 
longitudinal swelling; then the edges are brought to- 
gether, so that the tongue almost forms a closed tube ; 
again, it is turned completely back in front. Such flexi- 
bility as this hardly belongs to the tongue of any adult. 
Besides, the lips are often protruded a good deal, even 
when this is not required in framing vocables. 

The gain in the understanding of words heard is 
recognizable in this, that when the child hears the ap- 
propriate word, he takes hold, with thumb and forefin- 
ger, in a most graceful manner, of nose, mouth, beard, 
forehead, chin, eye, ear, or touches them with the thumb. 
But in doing this he often confounds ear and eye, chin 
and forehead, even nose and ear. " O " serves in place 
of " Ohr " (ear) ; " Au " in place of " Auge " (eye). In 
both cases the child soon discovered that these organs 
are in pairs, and he would seize with the right hand the 
lobe of my left and of my right ear alternately after I 
had asked "Ear?" How easily in such cases a new 
sound-impression causes confusion is shown by the fol- 
lowing fact : After I had at one time pointed out one 
ear, and had said, " Other ear," I succeeded, by means 
of repetition, in getting him to point out this other one 
also correctly every time. Now, then, the thing was to 
apply what had been learned to the eye. "When one 
eye had been pointed out, I asked, " Where is the other 
eye ? " The child grasped at an ear, with the sight of 
which the sound " other " was now associated. Eot till 
long after (in the twentieth month) did he learn to apply 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 129 

this sound of himself to different parts of the body. On 
the other hand, he understands perfectly the significance 

of the. commands, " Bring, fetch, give " ; he brings, 

fetches, gives desired objects, in which case, indeed, the 
gesture and look of the speaker are decisive; for, if 
these are only distinctly apprehended, it does not make 
much difference which word is said, or whether nothing 
is said. 

In the seventeenth month, although no disturbance 
of the development took place, there was no perceptible 
advance in the utterance of thoughts by sounds, or in 
the imitation of syllables pronounced by others, or in 
articulation, but there was a considerable increase of the 
acoustic power of discrimination in words heard and of 
the memory of sounds. 

Of syllables original with the child, these are new : 
Bibi, na-na-na — the first has come from the frequent 
hearing of " bitte " ; the last is an utterance of joy at 
meeting and an expression of the desire to be lifted up. 
Otherwise, longing, abhorrence, pleasure and pain, hun- 
ger and satiety, are indicated by pitch, accent, timbre, 
intensity of the vocal sounds, more decidedly than by 
syllables. A peculiar complaining sound signifies that 
he does not understand ; another one, that he does not 
wish. In place of atta, at the change of location of an 
object perceived, comes often a t-to and hot-to, with the 
lips much protruded. But, when the child himself 
wishes to leave the room, then he takes a hat, and says 
atta, casting a longing look at his nurse, or repeatedly 
taking hold of the door. 

J Of voluntary attempts to imitate sounds, the most 
noteworthy were the efforts to give the noise heard 



130 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

on the winding of a time-piece, and to repeat tones 
sung. 

The associations of words heard with seen, tangi- 
ble objects on the one hand, and, on the other hand, 
with definite co-ordinated muscular moyements, have 
become considerably more numerous. Thus the fol- 
lowing are already correctly distinguished, being very 
rarely confounded : Uhr (clock), Ohr (ear) ; Schuh (shoe), 
Stuhl (chair), Schulter (shoulder), Fuss (foot) ; Stirn 
(forehead), Kinn (chin) ; Nase (nose), blasen (blow) ; 
Bart (beard), Haar (hair) ; heiss (hot), Fleisch (meat). 

In addition to the above, eye, arm, hand, head, cheek, 
mouth, table, light, cupboard, flowers, are rightly pointed 
out. 

The child so often obeys the orders he hears— " run," 
"kick," "lie down," "cough," "blow," "bring," "give," 
"come," "kiss" — that when he occasionally does not 
obey, the disobedience must be ascribed no longer, as 
before, to deficient understanding, but to caprice, or, as 
may be discerned beyond a doubt from the expression 
of his countenance, to a genuine roguishness. Thus the 
spoken consonants are at last surely recognized in their 
differences of sound. 

~ In the eighteenth month this ability of the ear to 
discriminate, and with it the understanding of spoken 
words, increases. " Finger, glass, door, sofa, thermome- 
ter, stove, carpet, watering-pot, biscuit," are rightly 
pointed out, even when the objects, which were at first 
touched, or merely pointed at, along with loud and re- 
peated utterance of those words, are no longer present, 
but objects like them are present. Say " Finger," and 
the child takes hold of his own fingers only ; " Of en n 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 131 

(stove), then lie invariably at first looks upward 
(" oben "). Besides the earlier commands, the following 
are correctly obeyed: "Find, pick np, take it, lay it 
down." Hand him a flower, saying, " Smell," and he 
often carries it to his nose without opening his mouth. 

The repeating of syllables spoken for him is still 
rare; "mamma" is responded to by ta. The voluntary 
repeating of syllables heard by chance is likewise rare ; 
in particular, "jaja" is now repeated with precision. 

The atta, which used to be whispered when anything 
disappeared from the child's field of vision, has changed 
to Mo and t-tu and ftu, with pouting of the lips. 

In the monologues appear nai, mimi, papa, mimia, 
pata, rrrrr, the last uvular and labial for minutes at a 
time. But these meaningless utterances are simply signs 
of well-being in general, and are gladly repeated from 
pleasure in the exercise of the tongue and lips. The 
tongue still vibrates vigorously with fibrillar contrac- 
tions when it is at rest, the mouth being open. 

Characteristic for this period is the precision with 
which the various moods of feeling are expressed, with- 
out articulate sounds, by means of the voice, now be- 
come very high and strong, in screaming and crowing, 
then again in wailing, whimpering, weeping, grunting, 
squealing ; so that the mood is recognized by the voice 
better than ever before, especially desire, grief, joy, 
hunger, willfulness, and fear. But this language can 
not be represented by written characters. 

-^The same holds good of the nineteenth month, in 
which bawling and babbling are more rare, the spon- 
taneous sound-imitations are more frequent, the vocal 
cords are strained harder, the mechanism of articulation 



132 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

works with considerably more ease ; the understanding 
and the retention of spoken words have perceptibly in- 
creased, bnt no word of the child's own, nsed always in 
the same sense, is added. 

When the child has thrown an object from the table 
to the floor, he often follows it with his gaze and whis- 
pers, even when he does not know he is obseiwed, atta 
or t-ta, which is here nsed in the same sense with tiff or 
ft orftU) for " fort " (gone). 

When he had taken a newspaper out of the paper- 
basket and had spread it on the floor, he laid himself 
flat upon it, holding his face close to the print, and said 
— evidently of his own accord, imitating, as he had done 
before, the reading aloud of the newspaper, which had 
often been witnessed by him — repeating it for a long 
time in a monotonous voice, e-jd-e-e-jd nanana dna-nd- 
na atta-dna dje-jd sa ; then he tore the paper into many 
small pieces, and next turned the leaves of books, utter- 
ing pa-pa-ab ta ho-o-e momdmom lid-one. 

Such monologues are, however, exceptional at this 
period, the rule being uniform repetitions of the same 
syllable, e. g., liabb habb habb habb habbwa habbua. 
.-- Screaming when water of 26° C. was poured over 
him in the bath appeared, a few days after the first 
experiment of this sort, even before the bathing, at 
sight of the tub, sponge, and water. Previously, fear 
had only in very rare cases occasioned screaming, now 
the idea of the cold and wet that were to be expected 
was enough to occasion violent screaming. After about 
three weeks of daily bathing with water from 18 to 24° 
C, however, the screaming decreased again. The ex- 
perience that a pleasant feeling of warmth succeeded, 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 133 

may have forced the recollection of the unpleasant feel- 
ing into the background. But the screaming can not at 
all be represented by letters ; a and o do not suffice. 
The same is true of the screaming, often prolonged, 
before falling asleep in the evening, which occurs not 
seldom also without any assignable occasion, the child 
making known by it his desire to leave the bed. As 
this desire is not complied with, the child perceives the 
uselessness of the screaming, and at length obeys the 
command, "Lie down," without our employing force 
or expedients for soothing him. 

How far the power of imitation and of articulation 
is developed, is shown especially by the fact that now, 
at \&st,pa is correctly pronounced in response ; in the 
beginning ta was still frequently the utterance, then ha, 
finally pa almost invariably given correctly. 

Further, these results were obtained : 

Words said to him. Kespon.se. 

bitte . . . his, hits, hit, hets, beesi, he, hi, hit-th 

(Eng., th). 
hart . . . hatt, ait, haat. 
Fleisch . . dcc-ich, dai-s-cli, ddi-s-j. 
ma .... mo, ma. 

In hits appears with perfect distinctness (as already in 
the fifteenth month) the very rare ts=z. The "hart" 
was once only confounded with "haar," and responded 
to by grasping at the hair. The hits soon served to add 
force to the putting together of the hands in the atti- 
tude of begging ; it is thus the first attempt at the em- 
ployment of a German word to denote a state of his 
own, and that the state of desire. The other words 

12 



134: TEE MIXD OF THE CIIILD. 

said to him, and illustrated by touching and putting the 
hands upon objects, could not be given by him in re- 
sponse. When he was to say "weich" (soft), "halt" 
(cold), "nass" (wet), he turned his head away in repug- 
nance, as formerly. To "nass" he uttered in reply, 
once only, na. Smacking, when made for him, was 
imitated perfectly. The early morning hours, in which 
the sensibility of the brain is at its highest, are the best 
adapted to such experiments ; but these experiments 
were not multiplied, in order that the independent de- 
velopment might not be disturbed. 

The progress in the discrimination of words heard, 
and in the firm retention of what has been repeatedly 
heard, is shown particularly in more prompt obedience, 
whether in abstaining or in acting. 

To the list of objects correctly pointed out upon re- 
quest are added " leg, nail, spoon, kettle," and others. 
It is noteworthy, too, that now, if the syllables pa and 
ma, or papa and mamma, are prefixed to the names of 
the known parts of the face and head, the child points 
these out correctly ; e. g., to the question " Where is 
Mamma-ear," the child responds by taking hold of the 
ear of his mother, and to " papa-ear," of that of his 
father; so with "nose, eye," etc. But if asked for 
" mamma-beard," the child is visibly embarrassed, and 
finally, when there is a laugh at his hesitation, he 
laughs too. 

The old tricks, " How tall is the child ? " and 
" Yfhere is the little rogue ? " which have not been 
practiced for months past, have been retained in 
memory, for when in the eighty - second week I 
brought out both questions with urgency, the child be- 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 135 

thought himself for several seconds, motionless, then 
suddenly, after the first question, raised both arms. 
After the other question he likewise considered for 
several seconds, and then pointed to his head as he 
used to do. His memory for sound-impressions often 
repeated and associated with specific movements is con- 
sequently good. 

i In the twentieth month there was an important ad- 
vance to be recorded in his manner of repeating what 
was said to him. Suddenly, on the five hundred and 
eighty-fourth day, the child is repeating correctly and 
without difficulty words of two syllables that consist 
either of two like syllables — for the sake of brevity I 
will call these like-syllabled — or of syllables the second 
of which is the reverse of the first — such I call reverse- 
syllabled. Thus of the first class are papa, mama, bebe, 
baba, neinei, jaja, bobo, bubu ; of the second class, otto, 
enne, anna / these are very frequently given back quick- 
ly and faultlessly at this period, after the repetition of 
the single syllables jpa, ma, and others had gone on con- 
siderably more surely than before, and the child had 
more often tried of himself to imitate what he heard. 
These imitations already make sometimes the impres- 
sion of not being voluntary. Thus the child once — in 
the eighty-third week — observed attentively a redstart 
in the garden for two full minutes, and then imitated 
five or six times, not badly, the piping of the bird, turn- 
ing round toward me afterward. It was when he saw 
me that the child first seemed to be aware that he had 
made attempts at imitation at all. For his countenance 
was like that of one awaking from sleep, and he could 
not now be induced to imitate sounds. After five days 



136 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the spectacle was repeated. Again the piping of the 
bird was reproduced, and in the afternoon the child 
took a cow, roughly carved out of wood, of the size of 
the redstart, made it move back and forth on the table, 
upon its feet, and chirped now as he had done at sight 
of the bird ; imagination was here manifestly much 
excited. The wooden animal was to represent the bird, 
often observed in the garden, and nesting in the veranda ; 
and the chirping and piping were to represent its voice. 

On the other hand, words of unlike syllables, like 
" Zwieback" (biscuit), " Butterbrod," are either not given 
back at all or only in unrecognizable fashion, in spite of 
their being pronounced impressively for him. " Trock- 
en " (dry) yields sometimes tokke, toJcko, otto. Words of 
one syllable also offer generally great difficulties of articu- 
lation : thus " warm " and " weich " become wdi, " kalt " 
and "hart" become hatt. Although "bi" and "te" 
are often rightly given each by itself, the child can not 
combine the two, and turns away with repugnance when 
he is to reproduce " bi-te." The same thing frequently 
happens, still, even with " mamma " and " papa." But 
the child, when in lively spirits, very often pronounces 
of his own accord the syllables " bi " and " te " together, 
preferring, indeed, bidth (with English th) and beet to 
" bitte." In place of " ad jo " (adieu) he gives back ode 
and adje. Nor does he succeed in giving back three 
syllables ; e„ g=, the child s&yspapa, but not "papagei," 
and refuses altogether to repeat "gei" and "pagei." 
The same is true of " Gut," " Nacht," although he of 
himself holds out his hand for " Gute K"acht." 

When others laugh at anything whatsoever, the child 
laughs regularly with them, a purely imitative movement. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 137 

It is surprising that the reproducing of what is said 
to him succeeds best directly after the cold bath. in the 
morning, when the child has been screaming violently 
and has even been shivering, or when he is still screaming 
and is being rubbed dry, and, as if resigned to his fate, 
lies almost without comprehension. The will, it would 
seem, does not intrude here as a disturbing force, and 
echolalia manifests itself in its purity, as in the case 
of hypnotics. The little creature is subdued and power- 
less. But he speedily recovers himself, and then it is 
often quite hard to tell whether he will not or can not 
say the word that is pronounced to him. 

The understanding of single words, especially of 
single questions and commands, is considerably more 
prompt than in the previous month. Without there 
being any sort of explanation for it, this extraordinary 
understanding is here, manifesting itself particularly 
when the child is requested to fetch and carry all sorts 
of thingSo He has observed and touched a great deal, 
has listened less, except when spoken to. All training 
in tricks and performances, an evil in the modern edu- 
cation of children hard to avoid, was, however, sup- 
pressed as far as possible, so that the only new things 
were " making a bow " and " kissing the hand." 
The child practices both of these toward the end of 
the month, without direction, at coming and going. 
Many new objects, such as window, bed, knife, plate, 
cigar, his own teeth and thumbs, are correctly nointed 
out, if only the corresponding word is distinctly pro- 
nounced. Yet " Ofen " and " oben " are still con- 
founded. 

To put into written form the syllables invented by 



138 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the child independently, and to get at a sure denotation 
of objects by them, is exceedingly difficult, particularly 
when the syllables are merely whispered as the objects 
are touched, which frequently occurs. At the sight of 
things rolled noisily, especially of things whirling in a 
circle, the child would utter rodi, otto, rojo, and like 
sounds, in general, very indistinctly. Only one new 
concept could with certainty be proved to be associated 
with a particular sound. "With da and nda, frequently 
uttered on the sudden appearance of a new object in 
the field of vision, in a lively manner, loudly and with 
a peculiarly demonstrative accent — also with td and ntd 
— the child associates, beyond a doubt, existence, com- 
ing, appearing, shooting forth, emerging, in contrast 
with the very often softly spoken, whispered atta, f-tu, 
tuff, which signifies " away" or "gone." If I cover my 
head and let the child uncover it, he laughs after taking 
off the handkerchief, and says loudly da ; if I leave the 
room, he says atta or hatta, or ft or t-ta, generally soft- 
ly ; the last of these, or else hata, he says if he would 
like to be taken out himself. In the eighty-seventh 
week we went away on a journey, and on the railway- 
train the child, with an expression of terror or of 
anxious astonishment, again and again said attah, but 
without manifesting the desire for a change of place 
for himself, even by stretching out his arms. 

Two words only— papa for father, and hat or bit for 
"bitte," are, besides, rightly applied of the child's own 
accord. The prolonged screaming, from wantonness, of 
nandndnd, nom-nom, halxd, laid, chiefly when running 
about, has no definite meaning. The child exercises 
himself a good deal in loud outcry, as if he wanted to 



SPEECH m THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 139 

test the power of his voice. These exercises evidently 
give him great pleasure. Still the highest crowing 
tones are no longer quite so high and piercing as they 
were formerly. The vocal cords have become larger, 
and can no longer produce such high tones. The 
screamiug sounds of discontent, which continue to be 
repeated sometimes till hoarseness appears, but rarely in 
the night, have, on the contrary, as is the case with the 
shrill sounds of pain, scarcely changed their character, 
hd-e, hd-d-d-e, e. They are strongest in the bath, dur- 
ing the pouring on of cold water. 

The child, when left to himself, keeps up all the 
time his loud readings (" Lesestudien "). He "reads" 
in a monotonous way maps, letters, newspapers, draw- 
ings, spreading them out in the direction he likes, and 
lies down on them with his face close to them, or hold- 
ing the sheet with his hands close to his face, and, as 
before, utters especially vowel-sounds. 

In the twenty-first month imitative attempts of this 
kind became more frequent ; but singularly enough the 
babbling — from the eighty-ninth week on — became 
different. Before this time vowels were predominant, 
now more consonants are produced. When something 
is said for the child to reproduce that presents in- 
superable difficulties of articulation, then he moves 
tongue and lips in a marvelous fashion, and often 
says pto-pto, pt-pt, and verlapp, also dla-dla, without 
meaning, no matter what was the form of the word 
pronounced to him. In such practice there often ap- 
pears likewise a wilfulness, showing itself in inarticu- 
late sounds and the shaking of the head, even when it is 
merely the repetition of easy like-syllabled words that is 



140 TIIE MIND OF THE CHrLD. 

desired. Hence, in the case of new words, it is more 
difficult than before, or is even impossible to determine 
whether the child will not or whether he can not re- 
produce them. Words of unlike syllables are not re- 
peated at all, not even " bitte." In place of " danke " 
are heard dang-gee and danh-Jcee / the former favorite 
dakkn is almost never heard. In most of the attempts 
at sound imitation, the tendency to the doubling of syl- 
lables is worthy of notice. I say " bi," and the answer 
is bibi / then I say " te," and the answer is te-te. If 
I say "bi-te," the answer is likewise bibi; a single time 
only, in spite of daily trial, the answer was bi-te, as if 
by oversight. 

This doubling of syllables, involuntary and sure- 
ly contrary to the will of the child, stands in re- 
markable contrast with the indolence he commonly 
shows in reproducing anything said, even when the 
fault is not to be charged to teasing, stubbornness, or 
inability. The child then finds more gratification in 
other movements than those of the muscles of speech. 
The babbling only, abounding in consonants, yields him 
great pleasure, particularly when it is laughed at, al- 
though it remains wholly void of meaning as language. 
Yet bibi, like b'dbd, for " bitte," is correctly used by the 
child of his own accord. 

A new word, and one that gives notice of a con- 
siderable advance, is the term used by the child when 
hungry and thirsty, for " milk " or " food." He says, 
viz., with indescribable longing in his voice, mimi, 
more rarely than before mama and momom (page 85). 
The first appellation was certainly taken from the 
often-heard " milk " by imitation, and applied to biscuit 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 141 

and other kinds of food. If the child, when he has 
eaten enough, is asked, " Do yon want milk ? " he says 
without direction, neinein ; he has thus grasped 
and turned to use already the signification of the 
sound. The same is, perhaps, true also of " ja." For 
previously, when I asked the child as he was eat- 
ing, " Does it taste good ? " he was silent, and I would 
say, " Say jaja, 5 ' and this would be correctly repeated. 
But in the ninety-first week he, of his own accord, an- 
swers the question with jaja — " yes, yes." This, too, 
may rest simply on imitation, without a knowledge of 
the meaning of the ja, and without an understanding 
of the question ; yet there is progress in the recollection 
of the connection of the sound " schmeckt's " with, jaja, 
the intermediate links being passed over. 

In other cases, too, the strength of the memory for 
sounds is plainly manifested. To all questions of an 
earlier period, "Where is the forehead, nose, mouth, 
chin, beard, hair, cheek, eye, ear, shoulder \ " the child 
now at once pointed correctly in every instance, al- 
though he might not have answered them for anybody 
even once for two weeks. Only the question, (i Where 
is the thumb % " made him hesitate. But when the 
thumb had been again shown to him (firmly pressed), he 
knew it, and from that time pointed it out invariably 
without delay. To the question, " Where is the eye? '' 
he is accustomed to shut both eyes quickly at the same 
time and to open them again, and then to point to my 
eye ; to the question, " Axel's eye ? " he responds by 
pointing to his own ; to the question, " The other eye ? ,5 
by pointing to the one not touched. 

In the understanding of what is spoken astonishing 



142 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

progress lias been made — e. g., if I say, " Go, take the 
hat and lay it on the chair ! " the child executes the or- 
der without considering more than one or two seconds. 
He knows the meaning of a great number of words that 
no one has taught him — e. g., "whip, stick, match, 
pen." Objects of this sort are surely distinguished by 
the child, for, upon receiving orders, he gets, picks up, 
brings, lays down, gives these things each by itself. 

This understanding of spoken words is the more 
surprising, as his repetition of them continues still to 
be of a very rudimentary character. With the excep- 
tion of some interjections, especially joe as a joyous 
sound and of crowing sounds, also screaming sounds, 
which, however, have become more rare, the child has 
but few expressions of his own with a recognizable 
meaning ; ndd, ndd, da is demonstrative " da " (" there ") 
at new impressions. 

Att, att, att, is unintelligible, perhaps indicative of 
movement. 

Attah means "we are off" (upon setting out) and 
" I want to go " (" ich will fort ") ; tatass, tatass is unin- 
telligible, possibly a sound-imitation. 

When traveling by rail the child tried several times 
to imitate the hissing of the steam of the locomotive. 

In the twenty-second month again there are several 
observations to record, which show the progress in un- 
derstanding, the strengthening of the memory, and the 
greater facility in articulation. The child executes the 
orders given him with surprising accuracy, although 
the words spoken have not previously been impressed 
on him separately. Here, indeed, it is essential to con- 
sider the looks and gestures of those who give the or- 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 143 

ders; but tlie child also does what I request of him 
without looking at me. Instances of confusion among 
the words known to him are also perceptibly more rare. 
Once I asked him very distinctly, " Where's the moon ? " 
(Mond), and for answer the child pointed to his mouth 
(Mund). But the error was not repeated. 

The strength of the word-memory appears particu- 
larly in this, that all the objects learned are more quick- 
ly pointed out on request than they were previously, 
and the facility of articulation is perceived in the mul- 
tiplying of consonants in the monologues and in the 
frequent spontaneous utterance of joss, ps, ptsch (once), 
and irth (Engl.). The child says, without any occasion, 
pa-ptl-dd, pt, and gives a loud greeting from a distance 
with had-o, with ada, and ana. 

It seemed to me remarkable that the boy began sev- 
eral times without the least incitement to sing tolerably 
well. When I expressed my approval of it, he sprang 
about, overjoyed. At one time he sang, holding his 
finger on his tongue, first rollo, rollo, innumerable 
times, then mama, mama, mama, mama. 

The progress in the sound-mechanism is most plainly 
discerned in the greater certainty in reproducing what 
is spoken. Thus, " pst " is correctly given, and of re- 
verse-syllabled words, very accurately, " anna, otto, alia, 
appa, enne " ; of unlike-syllabled words, " lina," but 
still, notwithstanding many trials, not yet '"bitte." For 
the first time three-syllabled words also, plainly pro- 
nounced to him, were correctly given bach, viz., a-ma- 
ma and a-papa, as the child names his grandparents. 
Hitherto the vowels e, i, o, u, could not be correctly 
given every time, but " a " could be so given as before. 



144: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

When the reproduction of any new word that is too 
hard is requested — e. g., "gute Nacht" — the child at 
this period regularly answers tapeta, peta, pta, and pto- 
jpto, also rateratetat, expressing thereby not merely his 
inability, but also, sometimes roguishly, his disinclina- 
tion to repeat. 

Jaja and nein nein, along with da and bibi (with 
or without folding of the hands, for " bitte "), and mimi, 
continue still to be the only words taken from the lan- 
guage of adults that are used by the child in the proper 
sense when he desires or refuses anything. Apart from 
these appear inarticulate sounds, uttered even with the 
mouth shut. The intense cry of pain, or that produced 
by cold or wet or by grief at the departure of the par- 
ents (this with the accompaniment of abundant tears 
and the drawing of the corners of the mouth far down), 
makes the strongest contrast with the crowing for joy, 
particularly that at meeting again. 

The twenty-third month brought at length the first 
spoken judgment. The child was drinking milk, carry- 
ing the cup to his mouth with both hands. The milk 
was too warm for him, and he set the cup down quickly 
and said, loudly and decidedly, looking at me with eyes 
wide open and with earnestness, heiss (hot). This single 
word was to signify " The drink is too hot ! " In the 
same week, at the end of the ninety-ninth, the child of 
his own accord went to the heated stove, took a position 
before it, looked attentively at it, and suddenly said with 
decision, hot (heiss) / Again, a whole proposition in a 
syllable. In the sixty-third week for the first time the 
child had reproduced the word " hot " pronounced to him. 
Eight and a half months w r ere required for the step from 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 145 

the imitative hot to the independent hot as expressive of 
his judgment. He progressed more rapidly with the 
word " Wasser," which was reproduced as watja, and was 
called out longingly by the thirsty child a few weeks 
afterward. He already distinguishes water and milk in 
his own fashion as watja and mimi. Yet mim?ni, 
momo, and mama still signify food in general, and are 
called out often before meal-times by the impatient and 
hungry child. The primitive word atta is likewise fre- 
quently uttered incidentally when anything disappears 
from the child's field of vision or when he is himself 
carried away. The other sound-utterances of this period 
proceeding from the child's own impulse are interesting 
only as exercises of the apparatus of articulation. Thus, 
the child not seldom cries aloud oi or eu (an) ; further, 
unusually loud, ana, and for himself in play, ida, didl, 
dadl, dldo-dlda, and in singing tone opojo, apojopojum 
aid, heissa. With special pleasure the child, when 
talking to himself, said papa, mama, mama, mimi, 
momo, of his own accord, but not " mumu " ; on the 
other hand, e-mama-ma-memama, mi, ma, mo, ma. 
His grandparents he now regularly designates by e-papa 
and e-mama. He knows very well who is meant when 
he is asked, "Where is grandmamma? Grandpapa?" 
And several days after leaving them, when asked the 
question, e. g., on the railway -train, he points out of the 
window with a troubled look. The understanding of 
words heard is 3 again, in general more easy. The child 
for the most part obeys at once when I say, " drink, eat, 
shut, open, pick it up, turn around, sit, run ! " Only 
the order " come ! " is not so promptly executed, not, 
however, on account of lack of understanding, but from 



146 THE MIND OF TITE CHILD. 

willfulness. That the word-memory is becoming firm 
is indicated particularly by the circumstance that now 
the separate parts of the face and body are pointed out, 
even after pretty long intervals, quickly and upon re- 
quest, on his own person and that of others. "When I 
asked about his beard, the child (after having already 
pointed to my beard), in visible embarrassment, pointed 
with his forefinger to the place on his face correspond- 
ing to that where he saw the beard on mine, and moved 
his thumb and forefinger several times as if he were 
holding a hair of the beard between them and pulling 
at it, as he had had opportunity to do with mine. Here, 
accordingly, memory and imagination came in as supple- 
mentary to satisfy the demand made by the acoustic 
image. 

' The greatest progress is to be recorded in this month 
in regard to the reproduction of syllables and words. A 
perfecting of the process is apparent in the fact that 
when anything is said for him to repeat, his head is not 
turned away in unwillingness so often as before, in case 
the new word said to him is too difficult, nor are all 
sorts of incoherent, complicated sounds (paterateratte) 
given forth directly upon the first failure of the attempt 
at imitation. Thus, the following words were at this 
period, without systematic exercises, incidentally picked 
up (give, as before, the German pronunciation to the let- 
ters) : 



Spoken to him. 


Eeproduced. 


Spoken to him. 


Eeproduced. 


Ohr, 


Oa(r). 


Wasser, 


Wass, Watja. 


Tisch, 


Tiss. 


Hand, 


Mann. 


Haus, 


Hausesess. 


Heiss, 


Ha'lss. 


Hemd, 


Hem. 


Auge, 


Autschge. 


Pcitsche, 


Paitsch, Paitse. 


Butter, 


Buoto. 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 



147 



Spoken to him. 


Eeproduced. 


Spoken to him. 


Reproduced. 


Eimer, 


Alma. 


Alle, 


Alia. 


Bitte, 


Bete, Bite. 


Leier, 


Laijai. 


Blatt, 


Batn. 


Mund, 


Munn. 


Tuch, 


Tuhs. 


Finger, 


Finge. 


Papier, 


Pain, Pal. 


Pferd, 


Pfoived, Fowid. 


Fort, 


Wott. 


Gute Naeht 


, Nag-ch Na. 


Vater, 


Fa-ata. 


Guten Tag, 


Tatdch. 


Grete, 


Deete. 


Morgen, 


Moigjen. 


Karl, 


Kara. 


Axel, 


Akkes, Aje, Eja. 



The four words, Paitsch or Paitse, Bite, Waija, 
and Pa'iss, are uttered now and then by the child with- 
out being said to him, and their use has regard to the 
meaning contained in them. His whip and his pail he 
learned to name quickly and correctly. His own name, 
Axel, on the contrary, he designates by the favorite in- 
terjections Aje, Eja. On the whole, variety of articu- 
lation is on the increase as compared with the previous 
month, but the ability to put syllables together into 
words is still but little developed. Thus, e. g., the 
child reproduces quite correctly "je," and a ja,' ? and 
" na." Eut if any one says to him " Jena " or " Jana," 
the answer runs regularly nena or nana, and only ex- 
ceptionally, as if by chwace,jena. Further, he repeats 
correctly the syllables " bi " and " te " when they are 
given to him, and then also hi-te ; afterward, giving up 
the correct imitation, he says beti, but can not reproduce 
ti-be or tebi. "Bett, Karre, Kuk," are correctly re- 
peated. 

Finally, echolalia, not observed of late, appears 
again. If the child hears some one speak, he often re- 
peats the last syllable of the sentence just finished, if 
the accent were on it — e. g., " What said the man ? " 



148 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

man / or " Who is there ?" there f "Nun ? " (now) nou 
(nod). Once the name " "Willy " was called. Immediate- 
ly the child likewise called uile, with the accent on the 
last syllable, and repeated the call during an hour sev- 
eral dozens of times ; nay, even several days later he en- 
tertained himself with the stereotyped repetition. Had 
not his first echo-play produced great merriment, doubt- 
less this monotonous repetition would not have been 
kept up. In regard to the preference of one or another 
word the behavior of those about the child is not merely 
influential, but is alone decisive. I observed here, as I 
had done earlier, that urgent exhortations to repeat a 
new word have generally a much worse result than is 
obtained by leaving the child to himself. The correct, 
or at any rate the best, repetitions were those made 
when the child was not spoken to. Even adults can 
imitate others in their manner of speaking, their dia- 
lect, even their voice, much better when not called upon 
to do it, but left entirely to their own inclination. The 
wish or command of others generates an embarrassment 
which disturbs the course of the motor processes. I re- 
solved, consequently, to abandon in the following month 
all attempts to induce the child to reproduce sounds, 
but to observe so much the more closely what he might 
say of his own accord. 

In the last month of the second year of his life this 
leaving of him to himself proved fruitful in results to 
this extent — that voluntary sound-imitations gained con- 
siderably in frequency and accuracy. Particularly, 
genuine echolalia manifested itself more at this period 
in the repeating of the last syllables of sentences heard, 
the meaning of which remained unintelligible to the 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 149 

child ; and of single words, the sense of which became 
gradually clear to him by means of accompanying gest- 
ures. Thus, the word " Herein ! " (Come in !) was re- 
peated as an empty sound, and then arein, harrein, ha- 
arein, were shouted strenuously toward the door, when 
the child wanted to be let in ; ab (off) was uttered when 
a neck-ribbon was to be loosened. Moigen signified 
" Guten Morgen ! " na, " Gute Nacht ! " To the ques- 
tion, " "Was thun wir morgen % " (What shall we do to- 
morrow ?) comes the echo-answer moigen. In general, 
by far the greater part of the word-imitations are much 
distorted, to strangers often quite unintelligible. Ima and 
Imam mean " Emma," dakkngaggngaggn again means 
" danke," and betti still continues to signify " bitte." 
Only with the utmost pains, after the separate syllables 
have been frequently pronounced, appear dangee and 
bittee. An apple (Apfel) is regularly named apfeCeelee 
(from Apfelgelee) ; a biscuit (Zwieback), wita, then 
wijaJc; butter, on the contrary, is often correctly named. 
Instead of " Jawohl," the child almost invariably says 
wolja / for " Licht " list and lists / for " Wasser," watja 
still as before ; for " pfui " he repeats, when he has been 
awkward, ui, and often adds a jpott or putt in place of 
"caput." "Gut" is still pronounced ut or tut, and 
" fort," okh or ott. All the defects illustrated by these 
examples are owing rather to the lack of flexibility in 
the apparatus of articulation — even stammering, tit-t-t-t, 
in attempting to repeat " Tisch," appears — than to im- 
perfect ability to apprehend sounds. For the deficiency 
of articulation shows itself plainly when a new word 
is properly used, but pronounced sometimes correctly 
and sometimes incorrectly. Thus, the " tsch " hitherto 
13 



150 THE MIND OF TEE CIIILD. 

not often achieved (twentieth month), and the simple 
u sch" in witschi and wesch, both signifying "Zwet- 
schen," are imperfect, although both sounds were long 
ago well understood as commands to be silent, and Zwet- 
schen (plums) have been long known to the child. Fur- 
ther, the inability to reproduce anything is still ex- 
pressed now and then by raterateratera ; the failure 
to understand, rather by a peculiar dazed expression of 
countenance, with an inquiring look. 

With regard to the independent application of all 
the words repeated, in part correctly, in part with dis- 
tortions, a multiplicity of meanings is especially note- 
worthy in the separate expressions used by the child. 
The primitive word atta, used with uncommon fre- 
quency, has now among others the following significa- 
tions : " I want to go ; he is gone ; she is not here ; not 
yet here ; no longer here ; there is nothing in it ; there 
is no one there ; it is empty ; it is nowhere ; out there ; 
go out." To the question "Where have you been?" 
the child answers, on coming home, atta, and when he 
has drunk all there was in the glass, he likewise says 
atta. The concept common to all the interpretations 
adduced, " gone," seems to be the most comprehensive 
of all that are at the child's disposal. If we choose to 
regard a word like this atta as having the force of a 
whole sentence, we may note many such primitive sen- 
tences in this month. Thus, mann means, on one occa- 
sion, " A man has come," then almost every masculine 
figure is named mann; avff, accompanied with the 
offering of a key, signifies the wish for the opening of 
a box, and is cried with animation after vain attempts 
to open a watch. The concepts "male being" and 



SPEECH IN" THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 151 

" open " are thus not only clear, but are already named 
with the right words. The distinguishing of men from 
women appears for months past very strikingly in this, 
that the former only are greeted by reaching out the 
hand. The manifold meaning of a single word used 
as a sentence is shown particularly in the cry of papa, 
with gestures and looks corresponding to the different 
meanings of it. This one word, when called out to his 
father, means (1) "Come play with me"; (2) " Please 
lift me up"; (3) "Please give me that"; (4) "Help 
me get up on the chair " ; (5) " I can't," etc. 

The greatest progress, however, is indicated by the 
combination of two words into a sentence. The first 
sentence of this sort, spoken on the seven hundred and 
seventh day of his life at the sight of the house that was 
his home, was haim, mimi, i. e., " I would like to go 
home and drink milk." The second was papa, mimi, 
and others were similar. Contrasted with these first 
efforts at the framing of sentences, the earlier meaning- 
less monologues play only a subordinate part ; they be- 
come, as if they were the remains of the period of in- 
fancy, gradually rudimentary: thus, pipapapdi, breit, 
lara'i. A more important fact for the recognition of 
progress in speaking is that the words are often con- 
founded, e. g., watja and buoto (for butter). In gest- 
ures also and in all sorts of performances there are bad 
cases of confusion almost every day ; e. g., the child tries 
to put on his shoes, holding them with the heel- end to 
his toes, and takes hold of the can out of which he pours 
the milk into his cup by the lip instead of the handle. 
He often affirms in place of denying. His joy is, how- 
ever, regularly expressed by loud laughing and very 



152 TEE MIND OT THE CIIILD. 

high tones; his grief by an extraordinarily deep de- 
pression of the angles of the month and by weeping. 
Quickly as this expression of conntenance may pass 
over into a cheerful one — often on a sudden, in conse- 
quence of some new impression — no confusion of these 
two mimetic movements takes place. 

In the first month of the third year of life the prog- 
ress is extraordinary, and it is only in regard to the ar- 
ticulatory mechanism that no important new actions are 
to be recorded. The child does not prononnce a per- 
fect "u," or only by chance. Generally the lips are not 
enongh protruded, so that "u" becomes " on" ; "Uhr" 
and "Ohr" often sound almost the same. The "i" 
also is frequently mixed with other vowel-sounds, par- 
ticularly with " e." Probably the corners of the month 
are not drawn back sufficiently. With these exceptions 
the vowels of the German language now oifer hardly 
any difficulties. Of the consonants, the "sch" and 
" cht " are often imperfect or wanting. " Waschtisch " 
is regularly pronounced waztiz, and "Gute I^acht" 
gna. 

The sound-imitations of every kind are more mani- 
fold, eager, and skillful than ever before. Once the 
child even made a serious attempt to reproduce ten 
words spoken in close succession, but did not succeed. 
The attempt proves all the same that the word-imitation 
is now far beyond the lower echo-speech ; yet he likes 
to repeat the last words and syllables of sentences heard 
by him even in the following months. Here belongs 
his saying so when any object is brought to the place 
appointed for it. When the reproduction is defective, 
the child shows himself to be now much more amenable 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 



153 



to correction. He has become more teachable. At the 
beginning of the month he used to say, when he wanted 
to sit, ette, then else, afterward itse ; but he does not 
yet in the present month say " setzen " or " sitzen." 
Hitherto he could repeat correctly at the utmost two 
words said for him. Now he repeats three, and once 
even four, imperfectly : papa, heene, delle, means " Papa, 
Birne, Teller," and is uttered glibly ; but " Papa, Birne, 
Teller, bitte," or "Papa, Butter, bitte," is not yet re- 
peated correctly, but pata, hulte, hetti, and the like ; 
only very seldom, in spite of almost daily trial, papa, 
heene, delle, hittee. 

Evidence of the progress of the memory, the under- 
standing, and the articulation, is furnished in the an- 
swers the child gave when I asked him, as I touched va- 
rious objects, " What is that % n He replied : 



Autse, 


for 


Auge (eye). 


Mai, for 


Haar (hair). 


Nana, 


« 


Nase (nose). 


Ulter, " 


Sch ulter (shoulder). 


Ba, 


a 


Backe (back). 


Aam, " 


Arm (arm). 


Baat, 


" 


Bart (beard). 


Ann, " 


Hand (hand). 


OS, Oa, 


" 


Ohr (ear). 


WiSr, " 


Finger (finger). 


Qpf, 


" 


Kopf (head). 


Daima, " 


Daumen (thumb). 


Tenn, 


" 


Kinn (chin). 


Ann, " 


Handschuh (glove). 


Tane, 


" 


Zahne (teeth). 


Bain, " 


Bein (leg). 



But not one word has the child himself invented. 
When a new expression appears it may be surely traced 
to what has been heard, as uppe, oppee, appee, appei, to 
" Suppe." The name alone by which he calls on his 
nurse, wold, seemed hard to explain. If any one says, 
" Call Mary," the child invariably calls wold. It is 
probable, as he used to call it ivolja, that the appellation 
has its origin in the often-heard " ja wohl." 

The correct use of single words, picked up, one 



151 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

might say, at random, increases in a surprising manner. 
Here belong ftaden, reiputtse, for " Reissuppe," la-ock 
for " Schlafrock," hater for " Butter," Butterbrod, Uhr, 
Buch, Billerbooch for " Bilderbuch." In what fashion 
such words now incorporated into the child's vocabulary 
are employed is shown by the following examples : Tul 
(for " Stuhl ") means— (1) " I should like to be lifted up 
on the chair ; (2) My chair is gone ; (3) I want this chair 
brought to the table ; (4) This chair doesn't stand right." 
If the chair or other familiar object is broken, then it 
is still styled putt (for " caput," gone to smash) ; and 
if the child has himself broken anything he scolds 
his own hand, and says oi or oui, in place of " pfui " 
(fie) ! He wants to write to his grandmother, and asks 
for Papier, a daiti-pf (for " Bleistift," pencil), and says 
raitoe (for " schreiben," write). 

That misunderstandings occur in such beginnings of 
speech seems a matter of course. All that I observed, 
however, were from the child's standpoint rational. 
Some one says, " Schlag das Buch auf " (Open the book, 
but meaning literally " Strike upon the book "), and the 
child strikes upon the book with his hands without 
opening it. He does the same when one says, " Schlag 
auf das Buch" (Strike upon the book). Or we say, 
"Will you come? one, two!" and the child, without 
being able to count, answers, " Three, four." He has 
merely had the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, said over to him fre- 
quently. But, on the whole, his understanding of words 
heard, particularly of commands, has considerably ad- 
vanced ; and how far the reasoning faculty has developed 
is now easily seen in his independent designations for 
concepts. For example, since his delight at gifts of all 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 155 

sorts on his birthday, he says burtsa (for Geburtstag, 
birthday) when he is delighted by anything whatever. 
Another instance of childish induction was the follow- 
ing : The child's hand being slightly hurt, he was told to 
blow on his hand and it would be better. He did blow 
on his hand. In the afternoon he hit his head against 
something, and he began at once to blow of his own ac- 
cord, supposing that the blowing would have a soothing 
effect, even when it did not reach the injured part. 

In the forming of sentences considerable progress is 
to be recorded. Yet only once has the child joined more 
than four words in a sentence, and rarely three. His sen- 
tences consisting of two words, which express a fact of 
the present or of the immediate past, are often, perhaps 
generally, quite unintelligible to strangers. Thus, donna 
ku/ia signifies " Aunt has given me cake ?? ; Koffee na'in, 
" There is no coffee here " ; and mama etsee or etse is in- 
telligible only by means of the accompanying gesture as 
the expression of the wish, " Mamma, sit by me." Helle 
pumme signifies the wish to help (heZferi) in pumping, 
and is uttered at the sight of persons pumping water. 

The following sentence consisting of five words is 
particularly characteristic of this period, because it ex- 
hibits the first attempt to relate a personal experience. 
The child dropped his milk-cup and related mimi atta 
teppa papa o'i, which meant " Milch fort [auf den] 
Teppich, Papa [sagte] pfui." (Milk gone [on] carpet, 
Papa [said] " Fie ! ") The words adopted by the child 
have often a very different meaning from that which 
they have in the language of adults, being not entirely 
misunderstood but peculiarly interpreted by the imita- 
tor. Thus, pronouns, which are not for a long time yet 



156 



THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 



His imitation. 
ba-a-bats, blasabalitz. 
laze. 



understood in their true sense, signify objects themselves 
or their qualities. Dein bett means " the large bed." 

In the twenty-sixth month a large picture-book, 
with good colored pictures, was shown to the child by 
me every day. Then he himself would point out the 
separate objects represented, and those unknown to him 
were named to him, and then the words were repeated 
by him. Thus were obtained the following results : 

Said to him. 
Blasebalg (bellows), 
Saugflasche (nursing-bottle), 
Kanone (cannon), nanone. 

Koffer (trunk), 
Fuchs (fox), 

Kaffeekanne (coffee-urn), 
Frosch (frog), 
Klingel (bell), 
Besen (broom), 
Stiefel (boot), 
Nest (nest), 
Storeh (stork), 
Giesskanne (watering-pot), 
Fisch(fish), 
Zuekerhut (sugar-loaf), 
Vogel (bird), 
Kuchen (cake), 
Licht (light), 
Schlitten (sled), 
Tisch (table), 
Nuss (nut), 

Kaffeetopf (coffee-pot), 
Hund (dog), 
Brief (letter), 
Elephant, 
Fledermaus (bat), 
Kamm (comb), 
Schwalbe (swallow), 
Staar (starling), 



towiver, toffer, pfoffa, poffa, toff-wa. 

fulits. 

taffeetanne, pfafee-tanne. 

frotz. 

linli (learned as ingeling and UnUn). 

besann, beedsen, beedsenn. 

tiefel, stibbell, tihbell, tibl. 

netz. 

toich. 

tietstanne, ihtsta?me, ziesstanne. 

fiz. 

ukkahut. 

wodal. 

tuche, tucMn (hitherto kuliti). 

Wits, lits. 

Ufa, litta. 

tiss. 

nulmss, nuss. 

pqfee-topf. 

und. 

dief. 

elafant. 

lebamaunz, fleedermauz. 

damm, lamm, namm. 

baubee. 

tahr. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 



157 



Of his own accord the child pointed out with cer- 
tainty in the picture-book — 



ham, hd-em, hemm 

horz 

tawell 

lompee, lampe 

lotz 

benne 

torb 

onne-erm 

flatse 



clawelier 

littl, litzl, lilizl 

lowee 

ofa 

ud 

tint, hint 

naninchd 

manne 

tomml, tromml 

tulil 



for Helm (helmet). 

" Hirseh (stag). 

" Tafel (table). 

" Lampe (lamp). 

" Schloss (castle). 

" Birne (pear). 

" Korb (basket). 

" Sonnenschirm (parasol). 

" Flasche (bottle). 

" Zwetschen (plums). 

" Clavier (piano). 

" Schliissel (key). 

" Lowe (lion). 

" Ofen (stove). 

" Uhr (watch). 

" Kind (child). 

" Kaninchen (rabbit). 

" Pfanne (pan). 

" Trommel (drum). 

" Stuhl (chair). 



With these words, the meaning of which the child 
knows well, though he does not yet pronounce them 
perfectly, are to be ranked many more which have not 
been taught him, but which he has himself appropriated 
Thus, tola for Kohlen (coals), dais for Salz (salt). Other 
words spontaneously appropriated are, however, already 
pronounced correctly and correctly used, as Papier (pa- 
per), Holz (wood), Hut (hat), Wag-en (carriage), Tep- 
jpich (carpet), Deckel (cover), Milch, Teller (often telle), 
Frau, Mann, Mause. These cases form the minority, 
and are striking in the midst of the manifold mutila- 
tions which now constitute the child's speech. Of these 
mutilations some are, even to his nearest relatives who 



158 TEE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

are in company with the child every day, unintelligible 
or only with great pains to be unriddled. Thus, the 
child calls himself Attall instead of Axel ; says also 
Trans Aisl for " heraus Axel," i. e., " Axel wants to 
go out." He still says "bita for " bitte," and often mima 
or mami for Marie ; apf for "Apf el." The numerous 
mutilations of the words the child undertakes to speak 
are not all to be traced to defect of articulation. The 
"sell" is already perfectly developed in Ilandscliuh ; 
and yet in other words, as appears from the above ex- 
amples, it is either simply left out or has its place sup- 
plied by z and ss. Further, it sounds almost like wan- 
tonness when frequently the surd consonant is put in 
place of the sonant one or vice versa/ when, e. g., 
pitch (for Buch) pucherr is said on the one hand, and 
wort instead of " fort " on the other. Here belongs 
likewise the peculiar staccato manner of uttering the 
syllables, e. g., pil-ter-jpuch (Bilder-bueh — picture-book). 
At other times is heard a hasty biUerbuch or piller- 
jpuch. 

The babbling monologues have become infrequent 
and more of a play with words and the syllables of 
them, e. g., in the frequently repeated jpapa-u-Orua. 

On the other hand, independent thoughts expressed 
by words are more and more multiplied. Here is an 
example : The child had been extraordinarily pleased 
by the Christmas-tree. The candles on it had been 
lighted for three evenings. On the third evening, 
when only one of its many lights was burning, the child 
could not leave it, but kept taking a position before it 
and saying with earnest tone, gimnd-itz-boum, i. e., 
" Gute nacht, Christbaum ! " The most of his sentences 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 159 

still consist of two words, one of which is often a verb 
in the infinitive. Thus, lielle mama, helle ma?ni, i. e., 
" h elf en (help) Mama, Marie ! " and hibah tommen, i. e., 
" der Zwieback soil kommen " (let the biscuit come) ; 
or tsee machen (make c) — on the piano the keys c, d, e, 
had often been touched separately by the little fingers 
accidentally, and the applause when in response to the 
question, " Where is c f " the right key was touched, 
excited the wish for • repetition ; roth, driln machen 
(make red or green) — the child was instructed by me in 
the naming of colors; and dekhn pilen, i. e., "Yer- 
stecken spielen " (play hide and seek). In quite short 
narratives, too, the verbs appear in the infinitive only. 
Such accounts of every-day occurrences — important to 
the child, however, through their novelty — are in gen- 
eral falling into the background as compared with the 
expression of his wishes in words as in the last-men- 
tioned cases. Both kinds of initiatory attempts at speak- 
ing testify more and more plainly to awakening intel- 
lect, for, in order to use a noun together with a verb 
in such a way as to correspond to a wish or to a fact 
experienced, there must be added to the imitation of 
words heard and to the memory of them something 
which adapts the sense of them to the outward experi- 
ences at the time and the peculiar circumstances, and as- 
sociates them with one another. This something is the 
intellect. In proportion as it grows, the capacity for 
being taught tricks decreases and the child is already 
ashamed to answer by means of his former gestures the 
old questions, " Where is the little rogue ? " " How 
tall ? " etc. 

But how far from the intellect of the older child is 



160 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

that of the child now two years and two months old 
appears from this fact, that the latter has not the re- 
motest notion of number. He repeats mechanically, 
many times over, the words said for him, one, two, 
three, four, five / but when objects of the same sort are 
put before him in groups, he confounds all the numbers 
with one another in spite of countless attempts to bring 
the number 2 into firm connection with the sound two, 
etc. Nor does he as yet understand the meaning of the 
frequently repeated " danke " (thanks), for, when the 
child has poured out milk for himself, he puts down 
the pitcher and says dankee. 

One more remark is to be made about the names of 
animals. These names are multiplying in this period, 
which is an important one in regard to the genesis of 
mind. Ask, " What is the animal called ? " and the an- 
swer runs, mwnu, MJcerihi, bauwau, piep-piep, and 
others. No trace of onomatopoetic attempts can be dis- 
covered here. The child has received the names pro- 
nounced to him by his nurse and has retained them ; 
just so hotto for " Pf erd " (horse), like lingeling for 
" Klingel " (bell). None the less every healthy child 
has a strong inclination to onomatopeia. The cases al- 
ready reported prove the fact satisfactorily. The echo- 
lalia that still appears now and then really belongs to 
this. Inasmuch as in general in every onomatopoetic 
attempt we have to do with a sound-imitation or the 
reproducing of the oscillations of the tympanum as 
nearly as possible by means of the vocal cords, all at- 
tempts of the speechless child to speak are ultimately 
of onomatopoetic character in the earliest period ; but 
from the present time on sound-imitation retires before 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 161 

the reasoning activity, which is now shooting forth vig- 
orously in the childish brain. 

In the twenty-seventh month the activity of thought 
manifests itself already in various ways. The inde- 
pendent ideas, indeed, move in a narrowly limited 
sphere, but their increasing number testifies to the 
development of the intellect. Some examples may be 
given : 

The child sees a tall tree felled, and he says as it 
lies upon the ground, pick up/ Seeing a hole in a 
dressing-gown, he says, naen (sew) ! In his play he 
sometimes says to himself, dib acht (take care) ! To the 
question, " Did it taste good \ " the child answers while 
still eating, mekh noch (schmeckt noch), " It does taste 
good," thus distinguishing the past in the question from 
the present. The development of observation and com- 
parison is indicated by the circumstance that salt is 
also called sand. On the other hand, the feeling of 
gratitude is as yet quite undeveloped. The child, as in 
the previous month, says daiikee to himself when, e. g., 
he has opened his wardrobe-door alone. The word is 
thus as yet unintelligible to him, or it is used in the 
sense of " so " or " succeeded." His frequent expres- 
sions of pity are striking. When dolls are cut out of 
paper, the child weeps violently in the most pitiful man- 
ner, for fear that in the cutting a head (Top/) may be 
taken off. This behavior calls to mind the cries of 
arme wiehalc (armer Zwieback — poor biscuit) ! when a 
biscuit is divided, and arme hols (poor wood) ! when a 
stick of wood is thrown into the stove. Nobody has 
taught the child anything of that sort. 

The independent observations which he expresses 



162 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

correctly but very briefly in a form akin to the style of 
the telegraphic dispatch are now numerous, e. g. : 

Tain milch : There is no milk here. 

Lammee aus, lampee aus : The flame, the lamp, is 
gone out. 

Dass la-ohk: That is the dressing-gown (Schlaf- 
rock). 

Diss nicht la-okh : This is not the dressing-gown. 

His wishes the child expresses by means of verbs in 
the infinitive or of substantives alone. Thus, papa auf- 
tehen (papa, get up), fru-tukhen (breakfast), aus-taigen 
(get out), nicht blasen (not blow — in building card- 
houses), pieldose aufziehn (wind up the music-box), and 
biback (I should like a biscuit). Into these sentences of 
one, two, and three words there come, however, single 
adverbs not before used and indefinite pronouns, like 
een and e in tann een nicht or tanne nicht, for " kann 
er nicht " or " kann es nicht." Butter drauf (butter 
on it). Mama auch tommen (mamma come, too), noch 
mehr (more), bios Wasser (only water), hier (here), are 
the child's own imperatives. Schon wieder (again) he 
does indeed say of his own accord on fitting occasions ; 
but here he is probably repeating mechanically what 
he has heard. In all, the forming of a word that had 
not been heard as such, or that had not come from what 
had been heard through mutilation, has been surely 
proved in only a single instance. The child, viz., 
expressed the wish (on his seven hundred and ninety- 
sixth day) to have an apple pared or cut up, by means 
of the word messen. He knows a knife (Messer) and 
names it rightly, and while he works at the apple with 
a fork or a spoon or anything he can get hold of, or 



SPEECH IN TIIE FIRST THREE YEARS. 163 

merely points at it with his hand, he says repeatedly 
messen ! Only after instruction did he say Messer 
neiden (mit dem Messer schneiden — cut with the knife). 
Here for the first time a wholly new word is formed. 
The concept and the word "knife" (" Messer ") and the 
concept, " work with the knife," were present, but the 
word " schneiden " (cut) for the last was wanting, as 
also was " schalen " (pare). Hence, both in one were 
named messen (for " messern," it may be). The two 
expressions that used to be heard many times daily, the 
name wold for the nurse Mima (Mary) and atta, have 
now almost disappeared. Atta wesen for " draussen 
gewesen " (been out) is still used, it is true, but only 
seldom. In place of it come now weg, .fort, aus, and 
allall, in the sense of " empty," " finished." The too 
comprehensive, too indefinite concept atta has broken 
up into more limited and more definite ones. It has 
become, as it were, differentiated, as in the embryo the 
separate tissues are differentiated out of the previously 
apparently homogeneous tissue. 

In the period of rapid development now attained, 
the child daily surprises us afresh by his independent 
applications of words just heard, although many are 
not correctly applied, as toclien haiss (boiling hot), said 
not only of the milk, but also of the fire. 

When words clearly comprehended are used in a 
different sense from that in which adults use them — 
incorrectly used, the latter would say — there is, how- 
ever, no illogical employment of them on the part of 
the child. For it is always the fact, as in the last ex- 
ample, that the concept associated with the word is 
taken in a more extended sense. The very young child 



164 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

infers a law from a few, even from two observations, 
which present some agreement only in one respect, and 
that perhaps a quite subordinate respect. He makes 
inductions without deliberation. He has heard milk 
called " boiling hot," he feels its warmth, and then feels 
the warmth of the stove, consequently the stove also is 
" boiling hot " ; and so in other cases. This logical ac- 
tivity, the inductive process, now prevails. The once 
favorite monologues, pure, meaningless exercises of ar- 
ticulation, of voice and of hearing, are, on the contrary, 
falling off. The frequent repetition of the same sylla- 
ble, also of the same sentence (lampee aus\ still survives 
particularly in animated expressions of wish, erst essen 
(first eat), viel milch (much milk), mag-e-nicht (don't 
like it). Desire for food and for playthings makes the 
child loquacious, much more than dislike does, the latter 
being more easily manifested by means of going away, 
turning around, turning away. The child can even beg 
on behalf of his carved figures of animals and men. 
Pointing out a puppet, he says tint din tikche ajofi! 
Fur das kind ein Stuckchen Apfel ! (A bit of apple 
for the child.) 

Notwithstanding these manifold signs of a use of 
words that is beginning to be independent, the sound and 
word imitation continues to exist in enlarged measure, 
Echolalia has never, perhaps, been more marked, the 
final words of sentences heard being repeated with the 
regularity of a machine. If I say, " Leg die Feder hin " 
(Lay the pen down) ! there sounds in response a feder 
hin. All sorts of tones and noises are imitated with 
varying success ; even the whistle of the locomotive, an 
object in which a passionate interest is displayed ; the 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 165 

voices of animals ; so also German, French, Italian, and 
English, words. The French nasal " n " (in fton, orange), 
however — even in the following months — as well as the 
English " th," in there (in spite of the existence of the 
right formation in the fifteenth month), is not attained. 
The child still laughs regularly when others laugh, and 
on his part excites merriment through exact reproduc- 
tion of separate fragments of a dialogue that he does not 
understand, and that does not concern him ; e. g., da 
hastn (da hast Du ihn) (there you have him), or aha 
siste (siehst Du) (do you see) ? or um Gottes willen (for 
God's sake), the accent in these eases being also imitated 
with precision. But in his independent use of words 
the accentuation varies in irregular fashion. Such an 
arbitrary variation is lute and bite. JBeti no longer 
appears. 

As a noteworthy deficiency at this period is to be 
mentioned the feeble memory for often-prescribed an- 
swers to certain questions. To the question of a stranger, 
" What is your name ? " the child for the first time gave 
of his own accord the answer Attsell (Axel), on the eight 
hundred and tenth day of his life. On the other hand, 
improper answers that have been seriously censured re- 
main fixed in his recollection. The impression is stronger 
here. The weakness of memory is still shown most 
plainly when we try to make intelligible to the child the 
numerals one to five. It is a failure. The sensuous 
impression that one ball makes is so different from that 
which two balls make, the given words one and two 
sound so differently, that we can not help wondering 
how one and two, and likewise three, four, five, are con- 
founded with one another. 
U 



166 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

A question has not yet been uttered by the child. 
The frequent ist das signifies merely " das ist," or it is 
the echo of the oft-heard question, " Was ist das ? " and 
is uttered without the tone of interrogation. The arti- 
cles are not used at all yet ; at any rate, if used, they are 
merely imitated without understanding. 

The defects of articulation are now less striking, but 
only very slowly does the correct and distinct pronun- 
ciation take the place of the erroneous and indistinct. 
We still have regularly : 

bucher-rank for Biicherschrank (book-case). 

frai taJckee " Fraulein Starke (Miss Starke). 

ere, tseer " Schere (shears). 

raibe, raiben " Schreiben (u. Zeichnen) (write or draw). 

nur " Schnur (string). 

neiderin " Schneiderin (tailoress). 

dson (also schori) " schon (pretty). 

lafen " schlafen (sleep). 

pucJcen " spucken (spit). 

dsehen (also sehen) " seken (see). 

The sounds " sch " and " sch " in the " st " as well 
as in the " sp " (" schneiden, Spiel ") are often omitted 
without any substitute (naidd, taign, pieT) ; more sel- 
dom their place is supplied by " s," as in swer= u schwer " 
for " mude." Yet ks, ts are often given with purity in 
hex, hux, Axl. The last word is often pronounced Atsel 
and Atsli (heard by him as " Axeli "), very rarely AMI ; 
in " Auf ziehen " the " z " is almost always correctly re- 
produced. Further, we still have 

locotiwe for Locomotive. ann-nepf for anknopfen. 

nepf " Knopfe (buttons). nits " nickts (nothing). 

"Milch "is now permanently named correctly; no 
longer mimi, mich y "Wasser, wassa, no longer watja. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 167 

But " gefahrlich " is called fahrlich ; " getrunken," 
tricnhen. 

The twenty- eighth month is characterized by a rapid 
increase of activity in the formation of ideas, on the one 
hand, and by considerably greater certainty in the use 
of words, on the other. Ambition is developed and 
makes itself known by a frequent la'inee (allein, alone). 
The child wants to undertake all sorts of things without 
help. He asks for various objects interesting to him, 
with the words Ding haben (have the thing). That the 
faculty of observation and of combination is becoming 
perfected, is indicated by the following : The child sees 
an ox at the slaughter-house and says rnurnu (moo-moo) ; 
I add "todt" (dead); thereupon comes the response 
mumu todt,, and after a pause the child says, of his own 
accord, lachtett (geschlachtet, slaughtered) ; then JBlut 
heraus (blood out). The beginning of self-control is 
perceived in this, that the child often recollects, of him- 
self, the strict commands he has received to refrain 
from this and that. Thus, he had been accustomed to 
strike members of the family in fun, and this had been 
forbidden him. JSTow, when the inclination seizes him 
still to strike, he says emphatically nicht lagen (schlagen, 
— not strike), Axel hrav (good). In general the child 
names himself only by his name, which he also tells to 
strangers without being asked. His parents, and these 
alone, are mostly named Pajpa and llama, but often 
also by their names. 

The following is a proof of independent think- 
ing while the understanding of language is still im- 
perfect : At breakfast I say, "Axel is breakfasting 
with papa, is he not (nicht wahr) % " He replies 



168 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. 

earnestly, with genuine child-logic, dock wahr (but 
he is) ! 

The earlier appellation swer and wer (schwer — 
heavy) for miide (tired) is preserved. This transference, 
like the other one, locotiwe wassa trinkt, when the en- 
gine is supplied with water, is the intellectual peculium 
of the child. The number of such childish conceptions 
has now become very large. On the other hand, the 
words independently formed out of what has been heard 
are not numerous : 



beisst for gebissen (bitten), 
reit " geritten (ridden), 
esst " gegessen (eaten), 



wesen for gewesen (been), 
austrinkt " ausgetrunken (drunk up), 
tschulter " Schulter (shoulder), 



mast be considered as mutilations, not as new forma- 
tions. The great number of words correctly pro- 
nounced and used continues, on the other hand, to in- 
crease. There are even decided attempts to use single 
prepositions : Wepfe ( Knopf e) fur Mama (buttons for 
mamma) may be simple repetition, like Axel mit Pajpa / 
but as utterances of this kind were not formerly re- 
peated by him, though just as often made in his hear- 
ing, the understanding of the " fur " and " mit " must 
now be awakened. From this time forth the under- 
standing of several prepositions and the correct use of 
them abide. In addition there come into this period 
the first applications of the article. However often 
this part of speech may have been reproduced from the 
speech of others, it has never been said with under- 
standing ; but now in the expressions uyrin Hals and 
fui^m Axel (around the neck and for (the) Axel) there 
lies the beginning of right use of the article, and, in- 



SPEECH IN TEE FIRST THREE YEARS. 169 

deed, also in the months immediately succeeding, almost 
solely of the definite article. 

But more significant psychogenetically than all 
progress of this kind in the manipulation of language is 
the questioning that becomes active in this month. Al- 
though I paid special attention to this point from the 
beginning, I first heard the child ask a question of his 
own accord on the eight hundred and forty-fifth day of 
his life. He asked, " Where is Mima ? " From that 
time on questions were more frequent ; but in the time 
immediately following this his question was always one 
relating to something in space. The word " Where ? " 
continued for a long time to be his only interrogative. 
He has also for a long time understood the " Where ? " 
when he heard it. If, e. g., I asked, "Where is the 
nose ? " without giving any hint by look or otherwise, 
this question has for months past been correctly an- 
swered by a movement of the child's arm to his nose. 
It is true that my question, " What is that ? " a much 
more frequent one, is likewise answered correctly, al- 
though the word " What ? " has never been iised by the 
child. 

His cleverness in reproducing even foreign expres- 
sions is surprising. The words pronounced for him by 
Italians (during a pretty long sojourn on Lake G-arda), 
e. g., uno, due, tre, are given back without the least 
German accent. " Quattro," to be sure, became wattro, 
but ancora piccolo was absolutely pure. The imitation 
of the marching of soldiers, with the frequent cry hate- 
Ion eins suai (battalion, one, two), already gives him the 
greatest pleasure. The imagination that is active in it 
is to be discerned, however, rather in gestures than in 



170 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

words. How lively the child's power of imagination is 
appears also in the fact that flat figures rudely cut out 
of newspaper, to represent glasses and cups, are carried 
to the mouth like real ones. 

The articulation has again become a little more per- 
fected, but in many respects it is still a good deal de- 
ficient ; thus, in regard to the " sch," he says : 

abneiden for abschneiden (cut off). 

Mm " Stirn (forehead). 

verbrochen " versprochen (promised). 

lagn " schlagen (strike). 

runtergelucld " heruntergeschluckt (swallowed). 

einteign " einsteigen (get in). 

On the other hand, aus-teign (Aussteigen) (alight). 

Other defects of articulation are shown by the fol- 
lowing examples : 

top/ for klopfen (knock). 
ilffte " liif ten (take the air). 

leben " kleben (adhere). 

viloa, viloja, " Viola. 
dummi " Gummi (gum). 

The I mouille can not be at all successfully given at 
the beginning of this month (hatelon for u bataillon "), 
and the nasal sounds in " orange " and " salon " offer 
insuperable difficulties (up to the second half of the 
fourth year). At the end of this month, however, I 
heard a ganzee hataljohn (j like English y). " Orange" 
continued to be, after oraanjee had been given up, or- 
ohse. The softening (mouilliren — nj = ft) was incon- 
venient in this case. 

Quite correctly named at this period were eye, nose, 
cheek, tongue, mouth, ear, beard, hair, arm, thumb, 
finger. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 171 

Meaningless chatter has become much more rare. 
On the other hand, the child is in the habit of making 
all sorts of remarks, especially in the morning early 
after waking, for a quarter of an hour at a time and 
longer without interruption, these remarks for the most 
part consisting of a noun and verb and relating to ob- 
jects immediately about him. Monologues also are 
given in a singing voice, syllables without meaning, 
often a regular singing, the child meantime running 
many times around the table ; besides, his strong voice 
is not seldom practiced in producing high tones with- 
out any outward occasion ; and, finally, it is worthy of 
note that sometimes in sleep, evidently when the child 
has a vivid dream, a scream is uttered. Talking in his 
sleep first appeared in his fourth year. 

The greatest advance in the twenty-ninth month 
consists in the employment of the personal pronoun in 
place of his own name : hitte gib mir Brod (please give 
me bread) was the first sentence in which it appeared. 
" Ich " (I) is not yet said, but if I ask " Who is ' me ' ? " 
then the child names himself with his own name, as 
he does in general. Through this employment, more 
and more frequent from this time forth, of the pronoun 
instead of the proper name, is gradually introduced the 
inflection of the verbs he has heard ; but at this time 
the imperative has its place generally supplied by the 
infinitive : Papa sagn and Ssooss sitzen. Sentences 
composed by himself, or heard and then used by him, 
like das meckt (schmeckt) sehr gut (that tastes very 
good), are rare ; yet the discrimination between regular 
and irregular verbs has already begun to be made. To 
be sure, the question " Where have you been ? " is an- 



172 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

swered with paziren gegeht (goed to walk), and atisge- 
zieht is said for ausgezogen (drawed out), also geseht 
(seed) instead of gesehen (seen) ; but at the same time 
frequently eingetigen and ausgetigen^ instead of ein- and 
aus-geteigt. An interesting, rare misformation was 
grefessen for " gefressen." The verbs most frequently 
used seem to be " haben " (have) and " kommen " 
(come), and the forms u hat " and "kommt " are indeed 
correctly used sometimes, e. g., viel Ranch kommt 
heraus (much smoke comes out), and gleich kommt 
Kaffee (the coffee is coming). While the infinitives 
" haben " and " kommen " are uttered several times a 
day, the infinitive " sein " (to be) is never heard ; but of 
this auxiliary verb " ist " and " wesen " are used, the lat- 
ter for " gewesen." In every instance where the child 
expresses a desire by means of a verb, he simply takes 
the infinitive ; e. g., he hears, as he sits in the room, the 
noise of the railway-train at a distance, and he says, 
Locotiwe sehen. 

Further, numbering begins to be active to a note- 
worthy degree. Although the numerals are already well 
known to the child, he still confounds them on all occa- 
sions, and in view of the absolute failure of the many 
attempts to teach the child the significance of the num- 
bers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one might infer that he has not yet 
perceived the difference between, e. g., 3 matches and 
4: matches ; yet counting is already taking place, though 
in very unexpected fashion. The child began, viz., on 
the eight hundred and seventy-eighth day, suddenly, of 
his own accord entirely, to count with his nine-pins, put- 
ting them in a row, saying with each one, eins (one) ! 
eins ! eins ! eins ! afterward saying eins ! noch eins 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 173 

(one more) ! noch eins ! noch eins ! The process of 
adding is thus performed without the naming of the 
sums. 

The questioning that appeared in the previous 
month, the surest sign of independent thought in 
the child, is somewhat more plainly manifest; but 
a Where " alone serves as the interrogative word, and 
that in its proper sense : Where is hat ? " Which, who, 
why, when " are not spoken by the child and doubtless 
not understood, for, although succession in time is in 
many eases clear to him (" first eat," " then, 5 ' " now "), 
yet in many other cases he does not know how to ex- 
press distinctions of time ; just as in comparing many 
and few, large and small objects, the quantity is wrongly 
given. Thus he says correctly, when many counters 
are to be brought together, Zuviel (too many), but says 
Zuviel wrongly for Zuwenig (too little) when there is 
too little butter on his bread. In this case the Zuviel 
(too much) sounds almost like irony, which, of course, 
is out of the question at his age. a Too much " and 
" too little " are confounded in the same way as 5 and 
2. Yet, in another respect the memory has made a con- 
siderable gain. Expressions long since forgotten by 
those about the child are suddenly without assignable 
occasion sometimes uttered again with perfect distinct- 
ness, and the child even applies fitly what he has ob- 
served. Thus, he brings matches when he sees that 
some one wants to light a candle. I say to him, "Pick 
up the bread-crumbs." Upon this the child comes for- 
ward, though very slowly, cries out suddenly, Get 
droom, recollecting that he has seen the carpet swept, 
goes and gets the broom, and sweeps the crumbs away. 



174 THE HIND OF THE CHILD. 

His memory for the utterances of animals as they have 
been made for him is very good. If I ask, e. g., " What 
does the duck say % " the answer is Kuak kuak. He 
has gained also in certainty in naming the separate parts 
of a drawing, especially of a locomotive, so that one 
chief condition of speech, in the full sense of the word 
— memory — may be said to be well developed. 

Articulation, on the contrary, makes slow progress. 
" Hirsch " is called Hirss, " Schwalbe" Walhe, "Flasche" 
Flassee. The following are generally correctly pro- 
nounced : Trepjie, Fenster, Krug, Kraut, Kuchen, 
Helm, Besen, Cigarre, Hut, Giesskanne, Dinte, Buch, 
Birne. For " barometer, thermometer," he says mome- 
ter, for " Schrauben " raiibn, for " fruhstucken " (to 
breakfast) still often fri-ticken. 

In the thirtieth month the independent activity of 
thought develops more and more. When the child is 
playing by himself, e. g., he often says to himself : 
Himerehen ausleeren (make pail empty) ; Hackemesser 
(chopping-knife). Thus his small vocabulary serves 
him at any rate for making clear his own ideas. Al- 
ready his thinking is often a low speaking, yet only in 
part. When language fails him, he first considers well. 
An example : The child finds it very difficult to turn 
crosswise or lengthwise one of the nine-pins which he 
wants to put into its box, and when I say, " Round the 
other way ! " he turns it around in such a way that it 
comes to lie as it did at the beginning, wrongly. He 
also pushes the broad side of the cover against the small 
end of the box. The child evidently understands the 
expression " Round the other way " ; but as the expres- 
sion is ambiguous (the head of the nine-pin may go to 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 175 

the left, to tlie right, up, down, back, forward), we can 
understand that the pin should be turned now one way 
and again another way, and even brought back to its 
original position. Then appears the child's own delib- 
eration without words — without any speaking at all, low 
or loud — until after frequently repeated packing and 
unpacking hardly any hesitation is shown. Many ut- 
terances show how easily at this period objects that 
have only a slight resemblance to one another or only a 
few qualities in common are included in one concept. 
When a roasted apple is peeled, the child sees the peel 
and says (thinking of his boiled milk, which he saw sev- 
eral hours previous, but which is not now present), 
Milch audi Haut (milk skin too). Similar is the ex- 
pression Kirche lauiet (church rings) when the tower- 
clock strikes. 

The child forms concepts which comprehend a few 
qualities in unity, and indeed without designating the 
concept always by a particular word, whereas the de- 
veloped understanding more and more forms concepts 
with many qualities and designates them by words. 
Hence the concepts of the child have less content and 
more extent than those of adults. For this reason they 
are less distinct also, and are often ephemeral, since 
they break up into narrower, more distinct concepts ; but 
they always testify to activity of thought. 

A greater intellectual advance, however, is mani- 
fested at this time in the first intentional use of lan- 
guage in order to bring on a game of hide-and-seek. A 
key falls to the floor. The child picks it up quickly, 
holds it behind him, and to my question, " Where is the 
key % " answers nicht rnehr da (no longer there). As 



176 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

I found in the following months no falsehood, in the 
proper sense of the word, to record, but rather that the 
least error, the most trivial exaggeration, was corrected 
at once by the child himself, with peculiarly naive seri- 
ousness, in a little story, with pauses between the sepa- 
rate words, so, too, in the present case the answer nicht 
mehr da is no falsehood, but is to be understood as 
meaning that the key is no longer to be seen. The ex- 
pression of the face was roguish at the time. 

The sole interrogative wwd continues still to be 
" Where 1 " e. g., Where is hall f The demonstratives 
da (there) and dort (yonder) (dort ist nass — wet) were 
more frequently spoken correctly in answer. 

The ".I " in place of his own name does not yet ap- 
pear, because this word does not occur frequently 
enough in conversation with the child. The bad cus- 
tom adults have of designating themselves in their talk 
with little children, not as in ordinary conversation by 
the word " I," but by the proper name, or as " aunt," 
" grandma," etc., postpones the time of saying " I" on 
the part of children. Me is pretty often used at this 
period, for the reason that it is frequently heard at meal- 
times in " Give me ! " 

Bitte, Hebe Mama, gib mirmekr Svqype (Please, dear 
mamma, give me more soup) is, to be sure, learned by 
heart; but such sentences are at the proper time and 
in the proper place modified and even independently 
applied. Noch mehr, immer nock mehr, vielleicht, fast 
(more, more yet, perhaps, almost), are also expressions 
often properly employed, the last two, however, with 
uncertainty still. Fast gef alien (almost fell) the child 
says when he has actually fallen down. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. Iff 

Although, declension and conjugation are as jet ab- 
solutely lacking, a transition has become established 
from the worst form of djsgrammatism to the begin- 
ning of correct diction by means of the more frequent 
use of the plural in nouns {Bad, Udder), the more fre- 
quent employment of the article {for de Papa), the not 
very rare strong inflection {gegangen instead of the ear- 
lier gegeht ; genommen instead of the earlier genehmt). 
To be sure, the infinitive still stands in the place of the 
participle and the imperative in by far the great majori- 
ty of cases. The auxiliaries are often omitted or em- 
ployed in strange misformations, e. g., "Where have 
you been ? 55 Answer, jpaziren gewarent [something like 
they wented 'allc] (wir waren spazieren, spazieren ge- 
wesen). 

In articulation no perceptible progress is to be re- 
corded. The objects known from the picture-book are 
indeed for the most part rightly named, but new 
ones often have their names very much distorted — 
e. g., "Yioline" is persistently called wilo'ine. The 
"sch" is occasionally given correctly, but s-trilmpfe, 
auf-s-tehen is the rule. The answer that has been 
learned to the question, "How old are you?" "Seit 
November zwei Jahre," is given wember waijahr. The 
way in which the child learns the correct pronunciation 
is in general twofold : 1. Through frequent hearing of 
the correct words, since no one speaks as he himself does ; 
thus, e. g., genommen took the place of genehmt without 
instruction. 2. Through having the words frequently 
pronounced on purpose for him to imitate with the ut- 
most attention. Thus, e. g., the child up to this time 
always said Locotiwe and Zocojiotiwe. I exhorted him 



178 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

a few times earnestly to say " Locomotive." The result 
was Loco-loco-loco-mo-tiwe, and then Zocomotiwe, with 
exact copying of the accent with which I spoke. Sing- 
ing also is imitated. 

His memory for words that denote objects is very 
good ; but when expressions designating something not 
very apparent to the senses are to be learned, he easily 
fails. Thus, the left and the right foot or arm, the left 
and the right cheek or hand, are very often correctly 
named, but often falsely. The difference between left 
and right can not be exactly described, explained, or 
made imaginable to the child. 

In the thirty-first month two new questions make 
their appearance : The child asks, Welches Papier 
nehmen f (What paper take ?) after he has obtained 
permission to make marks with the pencil, i. e., to 
raiben (write and draw), and Was Tcost die Trommel f 
(What does the drum cost ?) 

ISTow the indefinite article appears oftener ; it is dis- 
tinctly audible in Halt n biss-chen Wasser ! More sur- 
prising are individual new formations, which disappear, 
however, soon after their rise ; thus, the comparative of 
" hoch." The child says with perfect distinctness hocher 
bauen (build higher) in playing with wooden blocks ; he 
thus forms of himself the most natural comparative, like 
the participle gegebt for " gegeben." In place of " Uhr- 
schlussel " (watch-key) he says Slussl- TJhr (key-watch), 
thus placing the principal thing first. 

He makes use of the strange expression heitgestern 
in place of " hente " (to-day), and in place of " gestern " 
(yesterday). The two latter taken singly are confounded 
with each other for a long time yet. 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 179 

Sentence-forming is still very imperfect: is .smoke 
means "that is smoke" and "there is smoke"; and 
kommt Locomotiwe stands for " da kommt eine oder die 
Locomotive " (There comes a, or the, engine). At sight 
of the bath-tub, however, the child says six times in 
quick succession Da kommt kalt Wasser rein, Marie 
(Cold water is to go in here, Mary). He frequently 
makes remarks on matters of fact, e. g., warm out there. 
If he has broken a flower-pot, a bandbox, a glass, he says 
regularly, of his own accord, Frederick glue again, and 
he reports faithfully every little fault to his parents. 
But when a plaything or an object interesting to him 
vexes him, he says, peevishly, stupid thing, e. g., to the 
carpet, which he can not lift ; and he does not linger 
long over one play. His occupation must be changed 
very often. 

The imitations are now again becoming less frequent 
than in the past months, and expressions not understood 
are repeated rather for the amusement of the family 
than unconsciously; thus, Aeh Gott (Oh God!) and 
wirklich grossartig (truly grand). Yet the child some- 
times sings in his sleep, several seconds at a time, evi- 
dently dreaming. 

The pronunciation of the " sch," even in the favorite 
succession of words, Games Batalljohn marss (for 
" marsch ") eins, zwei, is imperfect, and although no per- 
son of those about him pronounces the " st " in " Stall, 
stehen " otherwise than as " scht," the child keeps per- 
sistently to 8-tall, s-tehen. The pronunciation " scht " 
began in the last six months of the fourth year of his 
life, and in the forty-sixth month it completely crowded 
out the " st," which seems the more remarkable as the 



180 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

child was taken care of by a Mecklenburg woman from 
the beginning of the f onrth year. 

In the thirty-second month the " I " began to dis- 
place his own name. Mir {gib mir) and mich (bitte heb 
mich herauf, please lift me up) had already appeared in 
the twenty-ninth to the thirty-first month ; ich homme 
gleich, Geld mocht ich haben (I am coming directly, I 
should like money), are new acquirements. If he is 
asked " Who is If " the answer is, der Axel. But he still 
speaks in the third person frequently; e. g., the child 
says, speaking of himself, da ist er wieder (here he is 
again), Axel auch haben (Axel have, too), and mag-e 
nicht, thus designating himself at this period in fourfold 
fashion, by i", he, Axel, and by the omission of all pro- 
nouns and names. Although bitte setz mich auf den 
Stuhl (Please put me on the chair) is learned from hear- 
ing it said for him, yet the correct application of the 
sentence, which he makes of himself daily from this 
time on, must be regarded as an important advance. 
The same is true of the forming of clauses, which is 
now beginning to take place, as in Weiss nicht, wo es 
ist (Don't know where it is). New also is the separa- 
tion of the particle in compound verbs, as in fdllt im- 
mer um (keeps tumbling over). 

Longer and longer names and sentences are spoken 
with perfect distinctness, but the influence of the dialect 
of the neighborhood is occasionally perceptible. His 
nurse is the one who talks most with him. She is from 
the Schwarzwald, and from her comes the omission of 
the " n " at the end of words, as in Kdnnche, troche. 
Besides, the confounding of the surd, " p," with the 
sonant, " b " (plotter), is so frequent that it may well be 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 181 

taken from the Tlmringian dialect, like the confound- 
ing of " en " and " ei " (heit). The only German 
sounds that still present great difficulties are " sch " and 
" chts " (in " nichts "). 

The memory of the child has indeed improved, but 
it has become somewhat fastidious. Only that which 
seems interesting and intelligible to the child impresses 
itself permanently ; on the other hand, nseless and un- 
intelligible verses learned by rote, that persons have 
taught him, though seldom, for fun, are forgotten after 
a few days. 

In the thirty -third month the strength of memory 
already mentioned for certain experiences shows it- 
self in many characteristic remarks. Thus the child, 
again absent from home with his parents for some 
weeks, says almost every evening, gleich olasen die 
Soldaten (the soldiers, i. e., the band, will play directly), 
although no soldier is to be seen in the country far and 
wide. But at home the music was actually to be heard 
every evening. 

At sight of a cock in his picture-book the child says, 
slowly, Das ist der Hahn — Icommt immer — das game 
Stuck fortnehmt — von der Hand— -tend lauft fort 
(" That is the cock — keeps coming — takes away the 
whole piece — out of the hand — and runs off "). This 
narrative — the longest yet given, by the way — has ref- 
erence to the feeding of the fowls, on which occasion 
the cock had really carried off a piece of bread. The 
doings of animals in general excited the attention of 
the child greatly. He is capable even of forgetting 
to eat, in order to observe assiduously the movements 

of a fly. Jetzt geht in die Zeitung — geht in die Milch ! 
15 



182 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

Fort Thier ! Geh fort ! Unier den Kaffee ! (Now 
he is going into the newspaper — going into the milk ! 
Away, creature ! go away ! into the coffee !) His 
interest is very keen for other moving objects also, 
particularly locomotives. 

How little clearness there is in his conceptions of 
animal and machine, however, appears from the fact 
that both are addressed in the same way. When his 
father's brother comes, the child says, turning to his 
father, neuer (new) Papa / he has not, therefore, the 
slightest idea of that which the word " father " signifies. 
Naturally he can have none. Yet selfhood (Ichheit) has 
come forth at this period in considerably sharper mani- 
festation. He cries, Das Ding haben ! das will ich, 
das will ich, das will ich, das Spiel mocht ich haben ! 
(Have the thing ! I want it, I should like the game.) 
To be sure, when one says " komm, ich knopfs dir zu " 
(come, I will button it for you), the child comes, and 
says, as an echo, ich hwpfs dir zu (I will button it for 
you), evidently meaning, " Button it for me " ! He 
also confounds 2U viel (too much) with zu wenig (too 
little), nie (never) with immer (always), heute (to-day) 
with gestem (yesterday) ; on the contrary, the words 
und, sondern, noch, mehr, nur, Ms, wo (and, but, still, 
more, only, till, where) are always used correctly. The 
most striking mistakes are those of conjugation, which 
is still quite erroneous (e. g., getrinht and getrunkt along 
with getrunlcen), and of articulation, the " sch " (dsen 
for " schon ") being only seldom pure, mostly given as 
" s " or " to." " Toast " is called Toos and Dose. 

After the first thousand days of his life had passed, 
the observation of him was continued daily, but not the 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 183 

record in writing. Some particulars belonging to the 
following months may be noted : 

Many expressions accidentally heard by the child 
that excited the merriment of the family when once 
repeated by him, were rehearsed times without num- 
ber in a laughing, roguish, obtrusive manner, thus, 
du Hebe Zeit. The child also calls out the name of his 
nurse, Marie, often without meaning, over and over 
again, even in the night. He calls others also by this 
name in manifest distraction of mind, often making the 
correction himself when he perceives the mistake. 

More and more seldom does the child speak of him- 
self in the third person, and then he calls himself by 
his name, never saying "he" any more. Usually he 
speaks of himself as " I," especially " I will, I will have 
that, I can not." Gradually, too, he uses Du in ad- 
dress, e. g., Was fur hubsen Booh hast Du (What a 
handsome coat you have) ! Here the manner of using 
the " Was " is also new. 

On the ten hundred and twenty-eighth day warum 
(why?) was first used in a question. I was watching 
with the closest attention for the first appearance of 
this word. The sentence ran, Warum nach Hause 
gehen f ich will nicht nach Hause (Why go home ? I 
don't want to go home). When a wheel creaked on 
the carriage, the child asked, Was macht nur so (What 
makes that) \ Both questions show that at last the in- 
stinct of causality, which manifested itself more than a 
year before in a kind of activity of inquiry, in experi- 
menting, and even earlier (in the twelfth week) in giv- 
ing attention to things, is expressed in language / but 
the questioning is often repeated in a senseless way till 



134 THE MIND OE THE CHILD. 

it readies the point of weariness. Warum wird das Holz 
gesnittenf (for "gesagt" — Why is the wood sawed?) 
Warum mackt der Fredrick die \Blumen\ To_pfe rein f 
("Why does Frederick clean the flower-pots ?) are exam- 
ples of childish questions, which when they receive an 
answer, and indeed whatever answer, are followed by 
fresh questions just as idle (from the standpoint of 
adults) ; but they testify plainly to a far-reaching inde- 
pendent activity of thought. So with the frequent 
question, ~Wie macht man das nur f (How is that done ?) 

It is to be said, further, that I found the endeavor 
impracticable to ascertain the order of succession in 
which the child uses the different interrogative words. 
It depends wholly on the company about him at what 
time first this or that turn of expression or question is 
repeated arid then used independently. " Why " is 
heard by him, as a rule, less often than " What ? " and 
"How?" and "Which?" Still, it seems remarkable 
that I did not once hear the child say " When ? " until 
the close of the third year. The sense of space is, to 
be sure, but little developed at that time, but the sense 
of time still less. The use of the word "forgotten" 
(ich hale vergessen) and of " I shall " (do this or that) 
is exceedingly rare. 

The articulation was speedily perfected ; yet there 
was no success at all in the repetition of French nasal 
sounds. In spite of much pains "salon" remained 
solo, "orange" orose ; and the French "je" also pre- 
sented insuperable difficulties. Of German sounds, 
"sch" alone was seldom correct. It was still repre- 
sented by s / for example, in sloss for " Schloss," ssooss 
for " Schooss." 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 185 

His fondness for singing increases, and indeed all 
sorts of meaningless syllables are repeated with pleasure 
again and again, much as in the period of infancy, only 
more distinctly ; but, just as at that time, they can not 
all be represented on paper or even be correctly repro- 
duced by adults. For a considerable time he was fend 
of e-la, e-la, la, la, la, la, in higher and higher pitch, 
and with unequal intervals, lalla-ldlla, lilalula. In 
this it was certainly more the joy over the increasing 
compass and power of his voice that stimulated him to 
repetition than it w T as the sound of the syllables ; yet in 
the thirty-sixth month he showed great pleasure in his 
singing, of which peculiar, though not very pleasing, 
melodies were characteristic. The singing over of songs 
sung to him was but very imperfectly successful. On 
the other hand, the copying of the manner of speaking, 
of accent, cadence, and ring of the voices of adults was 
surprising, although echolalia proper almost ceased or 
appeared again only from time to time. 

Grammatical errors are already becoming more rare. 
A stubborn fault in declension is the putting of am in 
place of dem and der, e. g., das am Mama geben. Long 
sentences are formed correctly, but slowly and with 
pauses, without errors, e. g., die Blume — ist gam dur- 
stig — mocht auch n bischen Wasser haben (The flower 
is quite thirsty — would like a little water). If I ask 
now, " From whom have you learned that ? " the answer 
comes regularly, das hob ich alleine gelernt (I learned 
it alone). In general the child wants to manage for 
himself without assistance, to pull, push, mount, climb, 
water flowers, crying out repeatedly and passionately, 
ich mocht gam alleine (I want to [do it] all alone). In 



186 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

spite of this independence and these ambitious inclina- 
tions, there seldom appears an invention of his own in 
language. Here belongs, e. g., the remark of the child, 
das Bett ist zu holzhart (the bed is too wooden-hard), 
after having hit himself against the bed-post. Further, 
to the question, "Do you like to sleep in the large 
room \ " he answered, ja ganz lieberich gem • and 
when I asked, " Who, pray, speaks so ? " the answer 
came very slowly, with deliberation and with pauses, 
nicht-nicht-nicht-nicht-nicht-niemand (not — nobody). 

How far advanced is the use of the participles, 
which are hard to master, is shown by the sentence, die 
Milch ist schon keiss gemacht worden (the milk has al- 
ready been made hot). 

The child's manner of speaking when he was three 
years old approximated more and more rapidly to that 
of the family through continued listening to them and 
imitation of them, so that I gave up recording it ; be- 
sides, the abundant — some may think too abundant — 
material already presented supplies facts enough to sup- 
port the foundations of the history of the development 
of speech in the child as I have attempted to set it 
forth. A systematic, thorough-going investigation re- 
quires the combined labor of many, who must all strive 
to answer the same questions — questions which in this 
chronological survey are, in regard to one single indi- 
vidual, in part answered, but in part could merely be 
proposed. 

To observe the child every day during the first thou- 
sand days of his life, in order to trace the historical de- 
velopment of speech, was possible only through self- 
control, much patience, and great expenditure of time ; 



SPEECH IN THE FIRST THREE YEARS. 187 

but such observations are necessary, from the physio- 
logical, the psychological, the linguistic, and the peda- 
gogic point of view, and nothing can supply their 
place. 

In order to secure for them the highest degree of 
trustworthiness, I have adhered strictly, without excep- 
tion, to the following rules : 

1. I have not adopted a single observation of the 
accuracy of which I was not myself 'most positively con- 
vinced. Least of all can one rely on the reports of 
nurses, attendants, and other persons not practiced in 
scientific observing. I have often, merely by a brief, 
quiet cross-examination, brought such persons to see for 
themselves the erroneous character of their statements, 
particularly in case these were made in order to prove 
how "knowing" the infants were. - On the other hand, 
I owe to the mother of my child, who has by nature a 
talent for observation such as is given to few, a great 
many communications concerning his mental develop- 
ment which have been easily verified by myself. 

2. Every observation must immediately be entered 
in writing in a diary that is always lying ready. If this 
is not done, details of the observations are often forgot- 
ten ; a thing easily conceivable, because these details in 
themselves are in many ways uninteresting — especially 
the meaningless articulations — and they acquire value 
only in connection with others. 

3. In conducting . the observations every artificial 
strain upon the child is to be avoided, and the effort is 
to be made as often as possible to observe without the 
child's noticing the observer at all. 

4. All training of the one-year-old and of the two- 



188 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

year-old child must be, so far as possible, prevented. I 
have in this respect been so far successful that my child 
was not until late acquainted with such tricks as children 
are taught, and was not vexed with the learning by 
heart of songs, etc., which he was not capable of under- 
standing. Still, as the record shows, not all unnecessary 
training could be avoided. The earlier a little child is 
constrained to perform ceremonious and other conven- 
tional actions, the meaning of which is unknown to him, 
so much the earlier does he lose the poetic naturalness 
which, at any rate, is but brief and never comes again ; 
and so much the more difficult becomes the observation 
of his unadulterated mental development. 

5. Every interruption of one's observation for more 
than a day demands the substitution of another observer, 
and, after taking up the work again, a verification of 
what has been perceived and noted down in the interval. 

6. Three times, at least, every day the same child is 
to be observed, and everything incidentally noticed is 
to be put upon paper, no less than that which is me- 
thodically ascertained with reference to definite ques- 
tions. 

In accordance with these directions, tested by my- 
self, all my own observations in this book, and particu- 
larly those of this chapter, were conducted. Comparison 
with the statements of others can alone give them a 
general importance. 

"What has been furnished by earlier observers in re- 
gard to children's learning to speak is, however, not 
extensive. I have collected some data in an appendix. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 189 

CHAPTER XIX. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF, THE 
" I "-FEELING. 

Befoee the child is in a condition to recognize as 
belonging to him the parts of his body that he can feel 
and see, he must have had a great number of experi- 
ences, which are for the most part associated with pain- 
ful feelings. How little is gained for the development 
of the notion of the " I " by means of the first move- 
ments of the hands, which the infant early carries to the 
mouth, and which must give him, when he sucks them, 
a different feeling from that given by sucking the finger 
of another person, or other suitable objects, appears 
from the fact that, e. g., my child for months tugged at 
his fingers as if he wanted to pull them off, and struck 
his own head with his hand by way of experiment. At 
the close of the first year he had a fancy for striking 
hard substances against his teeth, and made a regular 
play of gnashing the teeth. When on the four hundred 
and ninth day he stood up straight in bed, holding on 
to the railing of it with his hands, he hit himself on his 
hare arm, and that the upper arm, so that he immedi- 
ately cried out with pain. The marks of the incisors 
were to be seen long afterward. The child did not a 
second time bite himself in the arm, but only bit his 
fingers, and inadvertently his tongue. 

The same child, who likes to hold a biscuit to the 
mouth of any member of the family to whom he is 
favorably disposed, offered the biscuit in the same way, 
entirely of his own accord, to his own foot — sitting on 



190 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the floor, holding the biscuit in a waiting attitude to his 
toes — and this strange freak was repeated many times in 
the twenty-third month. The child amused himself 
with it. 

Thus, at a time when the attention to what is around 
is already very far developed, one's own person may not 
be distinguished from the environment. Yierordt thinks 
that a discrimination between the general feelings [i. e., 
those caused by bodily states] and the sensations that 
pertain to the external world exists in the third month. 
From my observations I can not agree with him ; for, al- 
though the division may begin thus early, yet it does not 
become complete until much later. In the ninth month 
the feet are still eagerly felt of by the little hands, though 
not so eagerly as before, and the toes are carried to the 
mouth like a new plaything. Nay, even in the nine- 
teenth month it is not yet clear how much belongs to 
one's own body. The child had lost a shoe. I said, 
" Give the shoe." He stooped, seized it, and gave it to 
me. Then, when I said to the child, as he was standing 
upright on the floor, " Give the foot," in the expectation 
that he would hold it out, stretch it toward me, he 
grasped at it with both hands, and labored hard to get 
it and hand it to me. 

How little he understands, even after the first year 
of his life has passed, the difference between the parts of 
his own body and foreign objects is shown also in some 
strange experiments that the child conducted quite in- 
dependently. He sits by me at the table and strikes 
very often and rapidly with his hands successive blows 
upon the table, at first gently, then hard ; then, with 
the right hand alone, hard ; next, suddenly strikes him- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 191 

self with the same hand on the mouth ; then he holds 
his hand to bis month for a while, strikes the table again 
with the right hand, and then on a sudden strikes his 
own head (above the ear). The whole performance gave 
exactly the impression of Lis having for the first time 
noticed that it is one thing to strike oneself, one's 
own hard head, and another thing to strike a foreign 
hard object (forty-first week). Even in the thirteenth 
month the child often raps his head with his hand to 
try the effect, and seems surprised at the hardness of 
the head. Jn the sixteenth month he used not unfre- 
quently to set the left thumb against the left side of the 
head, and at the same time the right thumb against the 
right side of the head, above the ears, with the fingers 
spread, and to push at the same time, putting on a strange, 
wondering expression of face, with wide-open eyes. 
This movement is not imitated and not inherited, but 
invented. The child is doubtless making experiments 
by means of it upon the holding of the head, head- 
shaking, resistance of his own body, perhaps also upon 
the management of the head, as at every thump of the 
thumbs against the temporal bones a dull sound was 
heard. The objectivity of the fingers was found out 
not much before this time by involuntary, painful biting 
of them, for as late as the fifteenth month the child bit 
his finger so that he cried out with pain. Pain is the 
most efficient teacher in the learning of the difference 
between subjective and objective. 

Another important factor is the perception of a 
change produced oy one's own activity in all sorts of 
familiar objects that can be taken hold of in the neigh- 
borhood ; and the most remarkable day, from a psycho- 



192 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

genetic point of view, in any case an extremely signifi- 
cant day in the life of the infant, is the one in which he 
first experiences the connection of a movement executed 
by himself 'with a sense-impression following upon it. 
The noise that conies from the tearing and crumpling 
of paper is as yet unknown to the child. He discovers 
(in the fifth month) the fact that he himself in tearing 
paper into smaller and smaller pieces has again and 
again the new sound-sensation, and he repeats the ex- 
periment day by day and with a strain of exertion until 
this connection has lost the charm of novelty. At pres- 
ent there is not, indeed, as yet any clear insight into the 
nexus of cause; hut the child has now had the experi- 
ence that he can himself be the cause of a combined 
perception of sight and sound regularly, to the extent that 
when he tears paper there appears, on the one hand, the 
lessening in size ; on the other hand, the noise. The pa- 
tience with which this occupation — from the forty-fifth 
to the fifty-fifth week especially — is continued with pleas- 
ure is explained by the gratification at being a cause, at 
the perception that so striking a transformation as that 
of the newspaper into fragments has been effected by 
means of his own activity. Other occupations of this 
sort, which are taken up again and again with a persist- 
ency incomprehensible to an adult, are the shaking of a 
bunch of keys, the opening and closing of a box or 
purse (thirteenth month) ; the pulling out and empty- 
ing, and then the filling and pushing in, of a table- 
drawer ; the heaping up and the strewing about of gar- 
den-mold or gravel ; the turning of the leaves of a book 
(thirteenth to nineteenth month) ; digging and scraping 
in the sand ; the carrying of footstools hither and thither ; 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 193 

the placing of shells, stones, or buttons in rows (twenty- 
first month); pouring water into and out of bottles, 
cups, watering-pots (thirty-first to thirty-third months) ; 
and, in the case of my boy, the throwing of stones into 
the water. A little girl in the eleventh month found her 
chief pleasure in " rummaging " with trifles in drawers 
and little boxes. Her sister " played " with all sorts of 
things, taking an interest in dolls and pictures in the 
tenth month (Fran, von Striimpell). Here, too, the ea- 
gerness and seriousness with which such apparently aim- 
less movements are performed is remarkable. The sat- 
isfaction they afford must be very great, and it probably 
has its basis in the feeling of his own power generated 
by the movements originated by the child himself 
(changes of place, of position, of form) and in the proud 
feeling of being a cause. 

This is not mere playing, although it is so called ; 
it is experimenting. The child that at first merely 
played like a cat, being amused with color, form, and 
movement, has become a causative being. Herewith 
the development of the "1" -feeling enters upon a new 
phase ; but it is not yet perfected. Vanity and ambi- 
tion come in for the further development of it. Above 
all, it is attention to the parts of his own oody and the 
articles of his dress, the nearest of all objects to the 
child's eye, that helps along the separation in thought 
of the child's body from all other objects. 

I therefore made special observation of the directing 
of his look toward his own body and toward the mir- 
ror. In regard to the first I took note, among other 
facts, of the following : 

17th week. — In the seizing movements, as yet im- 



194 THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

perfect, the gaze is fixed partly on the object, partly on 
his own hand, especially if the hand has once seized 
successfully. 

18th week. — The very attentive regarding of the 
fingers in seizing is surprising, and is to be observed 
daily. 

23d week. — "When the infant, who often throws his 
hands about at random in the air, accidentally gets hold 
of one hand with the other, he regards attentively both 
his hands, which are often by chance folded. 

ftlfth week. — In the same way the child fixes his 
gaze for several minutes alternately upon a glove held 
by himself in his hands and upon his own fingers that 
hold it. 

32d week. — The child, lying on his back, looks very 
frequently at his legs stretched up vertically, especially 
at his feet, as if they were something foreign to him. 

35th week. — In every situation in which he can do 
so, the child tries to grasp a foot with both hands and 
carry it to his mouth, often with success. This monkey- 
like movement seems to afford him special pleasure. 

36th week. — His own hands and feet are no more 
so frequently observed by him without special occasion. 
Other new objects attract his gaze and are seized. 

39th week. — The same as before. In the bath, how- 
ever, the child sometimes looks at and feels of his own 
skin in various places, evidently taking pleasure in do- 
ing so. Sometimes he directs his gaze to his legs, which 
are bent and extended in a very lively manner in the 
most manifold variety of positions. 

55th week. — The child looks for a long time atten- 
tively at a person eating, and follows with his gaze every 



DEVELOPMENT OF TIIE FEELING OF SELF. 195 

movement ; grasps at the person's face, and then, after 
striking himself on the head, fixes his gaze on his own 
hands. He is fond of playing with the fingers of the 
persons in the family, and delights in the bendings and 
extensions, evidently comparing them with those of his 
own fingers. 

6 2d week. — Playing with his own fingers (at which 
he looks with a protracted gaze) as if he would pnll 
them off. Again, one hand is pressed down by the 
other flat upon the table until it hurts, as if the hand 
were a wholly foreign plaything, and it is still looked 
at wonderingly sometimes. 

From this time forth the gazing at the parts of his 
own body was perceptibly lessened. The child knew 
them as to their form, and gradually learned to distin- 
guish them from foreign objects as parts belonging to 
him ; but in this he by no means arrives at the point of 
considering, " The hand is mine, the thing seized is 
not," or " The leg belongs to me," and the like ; but 
because all the visible parts of the child's body, on ac- 
count of very frequently repeated observation, no longer 
excite the optic center so strongly and therefore appear 
no longer interesting — because the experiences of touch 
combined with visual perceptions always recur in the 
same manner — the child has gradually become accus- 
tomed to them and overlooks them when making use of 
his hands and feet. He no longer represents them to 
himself separately, as he did before, whereas every new 
object felt, seen, or heard, is very interesting to him and 
is separately represented in idea. Thus arises the defi- 
nite separation of object and subject in the child's 
intellect. In the beginning the child is new to him- 



196 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

self, namely, to the representational apparatus that gets 
its development only after birth. ; later, after he has be- 
come acquainted with himself, after he, namely, his 
body, has lost the charm of novelty for him, i. e., for 
the representational apparatus in his brain, a dim feel- 
ing of the " I " exists, and by means of further abstrac- 
tion the concept of the " I " is formed. 

The progress of the intellect in the act of looking 
into the mirror confirms this conclusion drawn from 
the above observations. 

For the behavior of the child toward his image in 
the glass shows unmistakably the gradual growth of the 
consciousness of self out of a condition in which objec- 
tive and subjective changes are not yet distinguished 
from each other. 

Among the subjective changes is, without doubt, the 
smiling at the image in the tenth week, which was prob- 
ably occasioned merely by the brightness (Sigismund). 
Another boy in the twenty-seventh week looked at him- 
self in the glass with a smile (Sigismund). 

Darwin recorded of one of his sons, that in the fifth 
month he repeatedly smiled at his father's image and 
his own in a mirror and took them for real objects ; but 
he was surprised that his father's voice sounded from 
behind him (the child). " Like all infants, he much en- 
joyed thus looking at himself, and in less than two 
months perfectly understood that it was an image, for 
if I made quite silently any odd grimace, he would sud- 
denly turn round to look at me. He was, however, 
puzzled at the age of seven months, when, being out of 
doors, he saw me on the inside of a large plate-glass 
window, and seemed in doubt whether or not it was an 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 197 

image. Another of my infants, a little girl, was not 
nearly so acute, and seemed quite perplexed at the image 
of a person in a mirror approaching her from behind. 
The higher apes which I tried with a small looking- 
glass behaved differently. They placed their hands be- 
hind the glass, and in doing so showed their sense ; but, 
far from taking pleasure in looking at themselves, they 
got angry and would look no more. 5 ' The first-men- 
tioned child, at the age of not quite nine months, asso- 
ciated his own name with his image in the looking- 
glass, and when called by name would turn toward the 
glass even when at some distance from it. He gave to 
" Ah ! " which he used at first when recognizing any per- 
son or his own image in a mirror, an exclamatory sound 
such as adults employ when surprised. Thus Darwin 
reports. 

My boy gave me occasion for the following obser- 
vations : 

In the eleventh week he does not see himself in the 
glass. If I knock on the glass, he turns his head in the 
direction of the sound. His image does not, however, 
make the slightest impression upon him. 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth weeks he looks at 
his image with utter indifference. His gaze is directed 
to the eyes in the image without any expression of pleas- 
ure or displeasure. 

In the sixteenth week the reflected image is still 
either ignored or looked at without interest. 

Near the beginning of the seventeenth week (on the 

one hundred and thirteenth day) the child for the first 

time regards his image in the glass with unmistakable 

attention, and indeed with the same expression with 

18 



198 THE MIXD 0F THE CHILD. 

which he is accustomed to fix his gaze on a strange face 
seen for the first time. The impression appears to awaken 
neither displeasure nor pleasure ; the perception seems 
now for the first time to be distinct. Three days later 
the child for the first time undoubtedly laughed at his 
image. 

When, in the twenty-fourth week, I held the child 
again before the glass, he saw my image, became very 
attentive, and suddenly turned round toward me, mani- 
festly convincing himself that I stood near him. 

In the twenty -fifth week he for the first time 
stretched out his hand toward his own image. He there- 
fore regarded it as capable of being seized. 

In the twenty -sixth week the child is delighted 
at seeing me in the glass. He turns round toward 
me, and evidently compares the original with the 
image. 

In the thirty-fifth week the child gayly and with in- 
terest grasps at his image in the glass, and is surprised 
when his hand comes against the smooth surface. 

In the forty-first to the forty-fourth week, the same. 
The reflected image is regularly greeted with a laugh, 
and is then grasped at. 

All these observations were made before a very large 
stationary mirror. 

In the fifty-seventh week, however, I held a small 
hand-mirror close to the face of the child. He looked 
at his image and then passed his hand behind the glass 
and moved the hand hither and thither as if searching. 
Then he took the mirror himself and looked at it and 
felt of it on both sides. When after several minutes I 
held the mirror before him again, precisely the same 



DEVELOPMENT OF TIIE FEELING OF SELF. 199 

performance was repeated. It accords with what was 
observed by Darwin in the case of anthropoid apes men- 
tioned above (p. 197). 

In the fifty-eighth week I showed to the child his 
photograph, cabinet-size, in a frame under glass. He 
first turned the picture round as he had turned the 
hand-mirror. Although the photographic image was 
much smaller than the reflected one, it seemed to be 
equally esteemed. On the same day (four hundred and 
second) I held the hand-mirror before the boy again, 
pointing out to him his image in it ; but he at once 
turned away obstinately (again like the intelligent ani- 
mal). 

Here the incomprehensible — in the . literal sense — 
was disturbing. But very -soon came the insight which 
is wanting to the quadrumana, for in the sixtieth week 
the child saw his mother in the mirror, and to the ques- 
tion, "Where is mamma?" he pointed to the image in 
the mirror and then turned round, laughing, to his 
mother. Now, as he had before this time behaved 
roguishly, there is no doubt that at this time, after four- 
teen months, original and image were distinguished with 
certainty as such, especially as his own photograph no 
longer excited wonder. 

Nevertheless, the child, in the sixty-first week, is still 
trying to feel of his own image in the glass, and he licks 
the glass in which he sees it, and, in the sixty-sixth week, 
also strikes against it with his hand. 

In the following week for the first time I saw the 
child make grimaces before the glass. He laughed as he 
did it. I stood behind him and called him by name. 
He turned around directly, although he saw me plainly 



200 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

in the glass. He evidently knew that the voice did not 
come from the image. 

In the sixty-ninth week signs of vanity are per- 
ceived. The child looks at himself in the glass with 
pleasure and often. If we put anything on his head 
and say, " Pretty," his expression changes. He is grati- 
fied in a strange and peculiar fashion ; his eyebrows are 
raised, and the eyes are opened wide. 

In the twenty-first month the child puts some lace 
or embroidered stuff about him, lets it hang down from 
his shoulders, looks round behind at the train, advanc- 
ing, stopping, eagerly throwing it into fresh folds. 
Here there is a mixture of apish imitation with vanity. 

As the child had, moreover, even in the seventeenth 
month, been fond of placing himself before the glass 
and making all sorts of faces, the experiments with the 
mirror were no longer continued. 

They show the transition from the infant's condition 
previous to the development of the ego, when he can 
not yet see distinctly, to the condition of the developed 
ego, who consciously distinguishes himself from his 
image in the glass and from other persons and their 
images. Yet for a long time after this step there ex- 
ists a certain lack of clearness in regard to names. In 
the twenty-first month the child laughs at his image 
in the glass and points to it when I ask, "Where is 
Axel ? " and at my image when asked, " Where is pa- 
pa ? " But, being asked with emphasis, the child turns 
round to me with a look of doubt. I once brought a 
large mirror near the child's bed in the evening after 
he had gone to sleep, so that he might perceive himself 
directly upon waking. He saw his image immediately 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 201 

after waking, seemed very much surprised at it, gazed 
fixedly at it, and when at last I asked, " Where is Axel ? " 
he pointed not to himself but to the image (six hundred 
and twentieth day). In the thirty-first month it still 
afforded him great pleasure to gaze at his image in the 
glass. The child would laugh at it persistently and 
heartily. 

Animals show great variety of behavior in this re- 
spect, as is well known. A pair of Turkish ducks, that 
I used to see every day for weeks, always kept them- 
selves apart from other ducks. "When the female died, 
the drake, to my surprise, betook himself by preference 
to a cellar-window that was covered on the inside and 
gave strong reflections, and he would stand with his 
head before this for hours every day. He saw his image 
there, and thought perhaps that it was his lost com- 
panion. 

A kitten before which I held a small mirror must 
surely have taken the image for a second living cat, for 
she went behind the glass and around it when it was 
conveniently placed. 

Many animals, on the contrary, are afraid of their 
reflected image, and run away from it. 

In like manner little children are sometimes fright- 
ened by the discovery of their own shadows. My child 
exhibited signs of fear at his shadow the first time he 
saw it ; but in his fourth year he was pleased with it, 
and to the question, "Where does the shadow come 
from ? " he answered, to our surprise, " From the sun " 
(fortieth month). 

More important for the development of the child's 
ego than are the observation of the shadow and of the 



202 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

image in the glass is the learning of speech, for it is not 
until words are used that the higher concepts are first 
marked- off from one another, and this is the case with 
the concept of the ego. Yet the wide-spread view, that 
the " I "-feeling first appears with the beginning of the 
use of the word " I," is wholly incorrect. Many head- 
strong children have a strongly marked "I "-feeling 
without calling themselves by anything but their names, 
because their relatives in speaking with them do not 
call themselves " I," but " papa, mamma, uncle, mam- 
ma," etc., so that the opportunity early to hear and to 
appropriate the words " I " and " mine " is rare. Others 
hear these words often, to be sure, especially from chil- 
dren somewhat older, and use them, yet do not under- 
stand them, but add to them their own names. Thus, 
a girl of two and a half years, named Use, used to say, 
Use mein Tuhl (Use, my chair), instead of "mem 
Stuhl " (Bardeleben). My boy of two and three fourths 
years repeated the " I " he heard, meaning by it " you." 
In the twenty-ninth month mir (me) was indeed said 
by him, but not " ich " (I), (p. 171). Soon, however, he 
named himself no more, as he had done in the twenty- 
third and even in the twenty-eighth month (pp. 147- 
167), by his first name. In the thirty-third month es- 
pecially came das will ich! das rnocht ich! (I wish 
that, I should like that) (p. 183). The fourfold desig- 
nation of his own person in the thirty-second month 
(p. 180)— by his name, by "I," by "he," and by the 
omission of all pronouns — was only a brief transition- 
stage, as was also the misunderstanding of the " dein " 
(your) which for a time (p. 156) meant "gross " (large). 
These observations plainly show that the " I "-feel- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 203 

ing is not first awakened by the learning of words, for 
this feeling, according to the facts given above, is pres- 
ent much earlier ; but by means of speech the concept- 
ual distinction of the " I," the self, the mine, is first 
made exact; the development, not the origin, of the 
" I "-feeling is simply favored. 

How obscure the " I "-concept is even after learning 
the use of the personal pronouns is shown by the utter- 
ance of the four-year-old daughter of Lindner, named 
Olga, die hat mich nass gemacht (she has made me 
wet), when she meant that she herself had done it ; and 
du sollst mir dock folgen, Olga (but you must follow 
me, Olga), the latter expression, indeed, being merely 
said after some one else. In her is noteworthy, too, the 
confounding of the possessives "his" and "her," e. g., 
dem Pajpa ihr Buck auf der Mama semen Platz ge- 
legt (her book, papa's, laid in his place, mamma's) (Lind- 
ner) ; and yet in these forms of speech there is an ad- 
vance in the differentiation of the concepts. 

All children are known to be late in beginning to 
speak about themselves, of what they wish to become, 
or of that which they can do better than others can, 
and the like. The ego has become an experience of 
consciousness long before this. 

All these progressive steps, which in the individual 
can be traced only with great pains, form, as it were, 
converging lines that culminate in the fully developed 
feeling of the personality as exclusive, as distinct from 
the outer world. 

Thus much the purely physiological view can admit 
without hesitation ; but a further unification or indivisi- 
bility or unbroken permanence of the child's ego, it can 



204 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

not reconcile with the facts, perfectly well established 
by me, that are presented in this chapter. 

For what is the significance of the fact, that " to the 
child his feet, hands, teeth, seem a plaything foreign to 
himself"? and that "the child bit his own arm as he 
was accustomed to bite objects with which he was not ac- 
quainted " % " Seem " to what part of the child ? What 
is that which bites in the child as in the very young 
chick that seizes its own toe with its bill and bites it as 
if it were the toe of its neighbor or a grain of millet ? 
Evidently the " subject " in the head is a different one 
from that in the trunk. The ego of the brain is other 
than the ego of the spinal marrow (the "spinal-marrow- 
soul" of Pfiuger). The one speaks, sees, hears, tastes, 
smells, and feels ; the other merely feels, and at the be- 
ginning, so long as brain and spinal marrow have only 
a loose organic connection and no functional connection 
at all with each other, the two egos are absolutely iso- 
lated from each other. Newly-born children with no 
brain, who lived for hours and days, as I myself saw in 
a case of rare interest, could suck, cry, move the limbs, 
and feel (for they stopped crying and took to sucking 
when something they could suck was put into their 
mouths when they were hungry). On the other hand, 
if a human being could be born with a brain but with- 
out a spinal marrow and could live, it would not be able 
to move its limbs. When a normal babe, therefore, 
plays with its feet or bites itself in the arm as it would 
bite a biscuit, we have in this a proof that the brain 
with its perceptive apparatus is independent of the 
spinal marrow. And the fact that acephalic new-born 
human beings and animal embryos deprived of brain, 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 205 

as Soltmann and I found, move their limbs just as sound 
ones do, cry just as they do, suck and respond to re- 
flexes, proves that the functions of the spinal marrow 
(inclusive of the optic thalami, the corpora quadrigemina 
and the cervical marrow) are independent of the cere- 
bral hemispheres (together with the corpus striatum, 
according to Soltmann). 

Now, however, the brainless living child that sucks, 
cries, moves arms and legs, and distinguishes pleasure 
from displeasure, has indisputably an individuality, an 
ego. We must, then, of necessity admit two egos in the 
child that has both cerebrum and spinal marrow, and 
that represents to himself his arm as good to taste of, as 
something to like. But, if two, why not several ? At 
the beginning, when the centers of sight, hearing, smell, 
and taste, in the brain are still imperfectly developed, 
each of these perceives for itself, the perceptions in the 
different departments of sense having as yet no connec- 
tion at all with one another. The case is like that of 
the spinal marrow, which at first does not communicate, 
or only very imperfectly communicates, to the brain 
that which it feels, e. g., the effect of the prick of a 
needle, for the newly born do not generally react upon 
that. Only by means of very frequent coincidences of 
unlike sense-impressions, in tasting-and-touching, seeing- 
and- feeling, seeing - and - hearing, seeing - and - smelling, 
tasting-and-smelling, hearing-and-touching, are the inter- 
central connecting fibers developed, and then first can 
the various representational centers, these " I "-makers, 
as it were, contribute, as in the case of the ordinary for- 
mation of concepts, to the formation of the corporate 
" I," which is quite abstract. 



206 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

This abstract " I "-concept, that belongs only to the 
adult, thinking human being, comes into existence in 
exactly the same way that other concepts do, viz., by 
means of the individual ideas from which it results, as 
e. g., the forest exists only when the trees exist. The 
subordinate " I's," that preside over the separate sense- 
departments, are in the little child not yet blended 
together, because in him the organic connections are 
still lacking ; which, being translated into the language 
of psychology, means that he lacks the necessary power 
of abstraction. The co-excitations of the sensory centers, 
that are as yet impressed with too few memory-images, 
can not yet take place on occasion of a single excitation, 
the cerebral connecting fibers being as yet too scanty. 

These co-excitations of parts of the brain function- 
ally different, on occasion of excitation of a part of the 
brain that has previously often been excited together 
with those, form the physiological foundation of the 
psychical phenomenon of the formation of concepts in 
general, and so of the formation of the " I "-concept. 
For the special ideas of all departments of sense have in 
all beings possessed of all the senses — or of four senses, 
or of three — the common quality of coming into exist- 
ence only under conditions of time, space, and causality. 
This common property presupposes similar processes in 
every separate sense-center of the highest rank. Excita- 
tions of one of these centers easily effect similar co- 
excitations of centers that have often been excited to- 
gether with them through objective impressions, and it 
is this similar co-excitement extending itself over the 
cerebral centers of all the nerves of sense that evokes 
the composite idea of the " I." 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF. 207 

According to this view, therefore, the " I " can not 
exist as a unit, as undivided, as uninterrupted ; it ex- 
ists only when the separate departments of sense are 
active with their egos, out of which the " I " is abstract- 
ed ; e. g., it disappears in dreamless sleep. In the 
waking condition it has continued existence only where 
the centro-sensory excitations are most strongly in force ; 
i. e., where the attention is on the strain. 

Still less, however, is the " I " an aggregate. For 
this presupposes the exchangeability of the component 
parts. The seeing ego, however, can just as little have 
its place made good by a substitute as can the hearing 
one, the tasting one, etc. The sum-total of the separate 
leaves, blossoms, stalks, roots, of the plant does not, by 
a great deal, constitute the plant. The parts must be 
joined together in a special manner. So, likewise, it is 
not enough to add together the characteristics common 
to the separate sense-representations in order to obtain 
from these the regulating and controlling " I." Rather 
there results from the increasing number and manifold- 
ness of the sense-impressions a continually increasing 
growth of the gray substance of the child's cerebrum, a 
rapid increase of the inter-central connecting fibers, and 
through this a readier co-excitement — association, so 
called — which unites feeling with willing and thinking 
in the child. 

This union is the " I/ J the sentient and emotive, the 
desiring and willing, the perceiving and thinking " I." 



208 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

CHAPTEE XX. 

SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 

Of all the facts that have been established by me 
through the observation of the child in the first years 
of his life, the formation of concepts without language 
is most opposed to the traditional doctrines, and it is 
just this on which I lay the greatest stress. 

It has been demonstrated that the human being, at 
the very beginning of his life, not only distinguishes 
pleasure and discomfort, but may also have single, dis- 
tinct sensations. He behaves on the first day differently, 
when the appropriate sense-impressions exist, from what 
he does when they are lacking. The first effect of these 
feelings, these few sensations, is the association of their 
traces, left behind in the central nervous system, with 
inborn movements. Those traces or central impressions 
develop gradually the personal memory. These move- 
ments are the point of departure for the primitive ac- 
tivity of the intellect, which separates the sensations 
both in time and in space. When the number of the 
memory-images, of distinct sensations, on the one hand, 
on the other, of the movements that have been associ- 
ated with them — e. g., "sweet" and "sucking" — has 
become larger, then a firmer association of sensation- 
and-movement- memories, i. e., of excitations of sensory 
and motor ganglionic cells takes place, so that excite- 
ment of the one brings with it co-excitement of the 
other. Sucking awakens the recollection of the sweet 
taste; the sweet taste of itself causes sucking. This 



SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 209 

succession is already a separation in time of two sensa- 
tions (the sweet and the motor sensation in sucking). 
The separation in space requires the recollection of two 
sensations, each with one movement ; the distinction 
between sucking at the left breast and sucking at the 
right is made after one trial. With this, the first act of 
the intellect is performed, the first perception made, 
i. e., a sensation first localized in time and space. The 
motor sensation of sucking has come, like the sweet 
taste, after a similar one, and it has come between two 
unlike relations in space that were distinguished. By 
means of multiplied perceptions (e. g., luminous fields 
not well defined, but yet defined) and multiplied move- 
ments with sensations of touch, the perception, after 
considerable time, acquires an object ; i. e., the intellect, 
which already allowed nothing bright to appear without 
boundary-lines, and thus allowed nothing bright to ap- 
pear except in space (whereas at the beginning bright- 
ness, as was the case even later with sound, had no 
limitation, no demarcation), begins to assign a cause for 
that which is perceived. Hereby perception is raised 
to representation. The often-felt, localized, sweet, 
warm, white wetness, which is associated with sucking, 
now forms an idea, and one of the earliest ideas. When, 
now, this idea has often arisen, the separate perceptions 
that have been necessary to its formation are united 
more and more firmly. Then, when one of these latter 
appears for itself, the memory-images of the others will 
also appear, through co-excitement of the ganglionic 
cells concerned ; but this means simply that the concept 
is now in existence. For the concept has its origin in 
the union of attributes. Attributes are perceived, and 



210 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the memory-images of them, that is, accordingly, mem- 
ory-images of separate perceptions, are so firmly associ- 
ated that, where only one appears in the midst of en- 
tirely new impressions, the concept yet emerges, because 
all the other images appear along with it. Language 
is not required for this. Up to this point, those born 
deaf behave exactly like infants that have all the senses, 
and like some animals that form concepts. 

These few first ideas, namely, the individual ideas, or 
sense-intuitions that are generated by the first percep- 
tions, and the simple general ideas (of a lower order), or 
concepts, arising out of these — the concepts of the child 
as yet without language, of microcephali also, of deaf- 
mutes, and of the higher animals — have now this pecul- 
iarity, that they have all been formed exactly in this 
way by the parents and the grandparents and the rep- 
resentatives of the successive generations (such notions 
as those of "food," "breast"). These concepts are not 
innate ; because no idea can be innate, for the reason 
that several peripheral impressions are necessary for 
the f orcnation of even a single perception. They are, 
however, inherited. Just as the teeth and the beard 
are not usually innate in man, but come and grow 
like those of the parents and are already implanted, 
piece for piece, in the new-born child, and are thus 
hereditary, so the first ideas of the infant, his first con- 
cepts, which arise unconsciously, without volition and 
without the possibility of inhibition, in every individual 
in the same way, must be called hereditary. Different 
as are the teeth from the germs of teeth in the newly- 
born, so different are the man's concepts, clear, sharply 
defined by words, from the child's ill-defined, obscure 



SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 211 

concepts, which arise quite independently of all lan- 
guage (of word, look, or gesture). 

In this wise the old doctrine of " innate ideas " be- 
comes clear. Ideas. or thoughts are themselves either 
representations or combinations of representations. They 
thus presuppose perceptions, and can not accordingly be 
innate, but may some of them be inherited, those, viz., 
winch at first, by virtue of the likeness between the 
brain of the child and that of the parent, and of the 
simiJarity between the external circumstances of the 
beginnings of life in child and parent, always arise in 
the same manner. 

The principal thing is the innate aptitude to per- 
ceive things and to form ideas, i. e., the innate intellect. 
By aptitude (Anlage), however, can be understood noth- 
ing else at present than a manner of reacting, a sort of 
capability or excitability, impressed upon the central 
organs of the nervous system after repeated association 
of nervous excitations (through a great many genera- 
tions in the same way). 

The brain comes into the world provided with a 
great number of impressions upon it. Some of these 
are quite obscure, some few are distinct. Each ances- 
tor has added his own to those previously existing. 
Among these impressions, finally, the useless ones must 
soon be obliterated by those that are useful. On the 
other hand, deep impressions will, like wounds, leave 
behind scars, which abide longer ; and very frequently 
used paths of connection between different portions of 
the brain and spinal marrow and the organs of sense 
are easier to travel even at • birth (instinctive and re- 
flexive processes). 



212 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

Now, of all the higher functions of the brain, the 
ordering one, which compares the simple, pure sensa- 
tions, the original experiences, and first sets them in an 
order of succession, viz., arranges them in time, then 
puts them side by side and one above another, and, not 
till later, one behind another, viz., arranges them in 
space — this function is one of the oldest. This order- 
ing of the sense-impressions is an activity of the intellect 
that has nothing to do with speech, and the capacity for 
it is, as Immanuel Kant discovered, present in man " as 
he now is " (Kant) before the activity of the senses 
begins ; but without this activity it can not assert 
itself. 

Now, I maintain, and in doing so I take my stand 
upon the facts published in this book, that just as little 
as the intellect of the child not yet able to speak has 
need of words or looks or gestures, or any symbol 
whatever, in order to arrange in time and space the 
sense-impressions, so little does that intellect require 
those means in order to form concepts and to perform 
logical operations ; and in this fundamental fact I see 
the material for bridging over the only great gulf that 
separates the child from the brute animal. 

That even physiologists deny that there is any pas- 
sage from one to the other is shown by Vierordt in 
his " Physiology of Infancy" (1877). 

The fundamental fact that a genuinely logical activi- 
ty of the brain goes on without language of any sort, in 
the adult man who has the faculty of speech, was dis- 
covered by Helmholtz. The logical functions called by 
him " unconscious inferences " begin, as I think I have 
shown by many observations in the newly-born, imme- 



SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 213 

diately with the activity of the senses. Perception in 
the third dimension of space is a particularly clear ex- 
ample of this sort of logical activity without words, 
because it is developed slowly. 

In place of the expression u unconscious," which, 
because it has caused much mischief, still prevents the 
term " unconscious inferences " from being naturalized 
in the physiology of the senses and the theory of per- 
ception, it would be advisable, since "instinctive" and 
" intuitive " are still more easily misunderstood, to say 
" wordless." Wordless ideas, wordless concepts, word- 
less judgments, wordless inferences, may be inherited. 
To these belong such as our progenitors often experi- 
enced at the beginning of life, such as not only come 
into existence without the participation of any medium 
of language whatever, but also are never even willed 
(intended, deliberate, voluntary), and can not under any 
circumstances be set aside or altered, whether to be cor- 
rected or falsified. An inherited defect can not be put 
aside, and neither can the inherited intellect. When 
the outer angle at the right of the eye is pressed upon, 
a light appears in the closed eye at the left, not at the 
right ; not at the place touched. This optical illusion, 
which was known even in Newton's day, this wordless 
inductive inference, is hereditary and incorrigible ; and, 
on the other hand, the hereditary wordless concejit of 
food can neither be prevented from arising nor be set 
aside nor be formed otherwise than it was formed by 
our ancestors. 

Innate, to make it once more prominent, is the facul- 
ty (the capacity, the aptitude, the potential function) of 
forming concepts, and some of the first concepts are 
17 



214 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

hereditary. New (not hereditary) concepts arise only 
after new perceptions, i. e., after experiences that asso- 
ciate themselves with the primitive ones by means of 
new connecting paths in the brain, and they begin in 
fact before the learning of speech. 

A chick just out of the shell possesses the capacity to 
lay eggs — the organs necessary — in fact the future eggs 
are inborn in the creature ; but only after some time 
does it lay eggs, and these are in every respect similar 
to the first eggs of its mother. Indeed, the chicks that 
come from these eggs resemble those of the mother her- 
self ; thus the eggs have hereditary properties. New 
eggs originate only by crossing, by external influences 
of all sorts, influences, therefore, of experience. 

So, too, the new-born child possesses the capacity of 
forming concepts. The organs necessary for that are in- 
born in him, but not till after some time does he form 
concepts, and these are in all nations and at all times quite 
similar to the first concepts formed by the child's mother. 
Indeed, the inferences that attach themselves to the first 
concepts will resemble those which were developed in 
the mother or will be identical with them ; these con- 
cepts have, then, hereditary properties. New concepts 
originate only through experience. They originate in 
great numbers in every child that learns to speak. 

If the fact that children utterly ignorant of speech, 
even those born deaf, already perform logical operations 
with perfect correctness, proves the intellect to be inde- 
pendent of language, yet searching observation of the 
child that is learning to speak shows that only by means 
of verbal language can the intellect give precision to its 
primitive indistinct concepts and thereby develop itself 



SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 215 

further, connecting ideas appropriately with the cir- 
cumstances in which the child lives. 

It is a settled fact, however, that many ideas must 
already be formed in order to make possible the ac- 
quirement of speech. The existence of ideas is a neces- 
sary condition of learning to speak. 

The greatest intellectual advance in this field con- 
sists in this, that the specific method of the human race 
is discovered by the speechless child — the method of 
expressing ideas aloud and articulately, i. e., by means 
of expirations of breath along with various positions of 
the larynx and the mouth and various movements of 
the tongue. "No child invents this method, it is trans- 
mitted ; but each individual child discovers that by 
means of sounds thus originating one can make known 
his ideas and thereby induce feelings of pleasure and do 
away with discomfort. Therefore he applies himself to 
this process of himself, without instruction, provided 
only that he grows up among speaking people ; and 
even where hearing, which serves as a means of inter- 
course with them, is wanting from birth, a life rich in 
ideas and an intelligence of a high order may be devel- 
oped, provided that written signs of sound supply the 
place of sounds heard. These signs, however, can be 
learned only by means of instruction. The way in which 
writing is learned is the same as the way in which the 
alalic child learns to speak. Eoth rest upon imi- 
tation. 

I have shown that the first firm association of an 
idea with a syllable or with a word-like combination of 
syllables, takes place exclusively through imitation ; but 
a union of this sort being once established,, the child 



210 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

then f reel y invents new combinations, although to a 
mnch more limited extent than is commonly assumed. 
No one brings with him into the world a genius of 
such quality that it would be capable of inventing 
articulate speech. It is difficult enough to compre- 
hend that imitation suffices for the child to learn a 
language. 

What organic conditions are required for the imita- 
tion of sounds and for learning to speak I have endeav- 
ored to ascertain by means of a systematic collection, 
resting on the best pathological investigations, of all the 
disturbances of speech thus far observed in adults ; and 
the daily observation of a sound child, who was kept 
away from all training as far as possible, as well as the 
frequent observation of other children, has brought me 
to the following important result : 

That every known form of disturbance of speech 
in adults finds its perfect counterpart in the child that 
is learning to speak. 

The child can not yet speak correctly, because his 
impressive, central, and expressive organs of speech are 
not yet completely developed. The adult patient can 
no longer speak correctly, because those parts are no 
longer complete or capable of performing their func- 
tions. The parallelism is perfect even to individual 
cases, if children of various ages are carefully observed 
in regard to their acquirement of speech. As to facts 
of a more general nature, we arrive, then, at the three 
following : 

1. The normal infant understands spoken language 
much earlier than he can himself produce through imi- 
tation the sounds, syllables, and words he hears. 



SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 217 

2. The normal child, however, before he begins to 
speak or to imitate correctly the sounds of language, 
forms of his own accord all or nearly all the sounds that 
occur in his future speech and very many others besides, 
and delights in doing it. 

3. The order of succession in which, the sounds of 
speech are produced by the infant is different with dif- 
ferent individuals, and consequently is not determined 
by the principle of the least effort. It is dependent 
upon several factors — brain, teeth, size of the tongue, 
acuteness of hearing, motility, and others. Only in 
the later, intentional, sound -formations and attempts 
at speaking does that principle come under consid- 
eration. 

In the acquirement of every complicated muscular 
movement, dancing, e. g., the difficult combinations 
which make a greater strain on the activity of the will 
are in like manner acquired last. 

Heredity plays no part in this, for every child can 
learn to master perfectly any language, provided he 
hears from birth only the one to be learned. The plas- 
ticity of the inborn organs of speech is thus in the earli- 
est childhood very great. 

To follow farther the influence that the use of 
speech as a means of understanding has upon the intel- 
lectual development of the child lies outside the prob- 
lem dealt with in this book. Let me, in conclusion, sim- 
ply give a brief estimate of the questioning-activity that 
makes its appearance very early after the first attempts 
at speech, and also add a few remarks on the develop- 
ment of the u 1" -feeling. 

The child's questioning as a means of . his culture is 



218 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

almost universally underrated. The interest in causali- 
ty that unfolds itself more and more vigorously with 
the learning of speech, the asking why, which is often 
almost unendurable to parents and educators, is fully 
justified, and ought not, as unfortunately is too often 
the case, to be unheeded, purposely left unanswered, 
purposely answered falsely. I have from the beginning 
given to my boy, to the best of my knowledge invari- 
ably, an answer to his questions intelligible to him and 
not contrary to truth, and have noticed that in conse- 
quence at a later period, in the fifth and the sixth and es- 
pecially in the seventh year, the questions prove to be 
more and more intelligent, because the previous answers 
are retained. If, on the contrary, we do not answer at 
all, or if we answer with jests and false tales, it is not 
to be wondered at that a child even of superior endow- 
ments puts foolish and absurd questions and thinks il- 
logically — a thing that rarely occurs where questions 
are rightly answered and fitting instruction is given, to 
say nothing of rearing the child to superstition. The 
only legend in which I allow my boy to have firm 
faith is that of the stork that brings new babes, and 
what goes along with that. 

With regard to the development of the " I "-feeling 
the following holds good : 

This feeling does not awake on the day when the 
child uses for the first time the word " I " instead of his 
own name — the date of such use varies according as those 
about it name themselves and the child by the proper 
name and not by the pronoun for a longer or a shorter 
period; but the "I" is separated from the "not-I" 
after a long series of experiences, chiefly of a painful 



SUMMARY OF RESULTS. 219 

sort, as these observations have made clear, through the 
becoming accustomed to the parts of one's own body. 
These, which at first are foreign objects, affect the 
child's organs of sense always in the same manner, and 
thereby become uninteresting after they have lost the 
charm of novelty. JSTow, his own body is that to which 
the attractive objective impressions (i. e., the world) are 
referred, and with the production by him of new im- 
pressions, with the changes wrought by him (in the ex- 
perimenting which is called " playing "), with the expe- 
rience of being- a-cause, is developed more and more in 
the child the feeling of self. "With this he raises him- 
self higher and higher above the dependent condition 
of the animal, so that at last the difference, not recog- 
nizable at all before birth and hardly recognizable at the 
beginning after birth, between animal and human being 
attains a magnitude dangerous for the latter, attains it, 
above all, by means of language. 

But if it is necessary for the child to appropriate to 
himself as completely as possible this highest privilege 
of the human race and through this to overcome the 
animal nature of his first period ; if his development re- 
quires the stripping off of the remains of the animal 
and the unfolding of the responsible " I"— then it will 
conduce to the highest satisfaction of the thinking man, at 
the summit of his experience of life, to go back in thought 
to his earliest childhood, for that period teaches him 
plainly that he himself has his origin in nature, is inti- 
mately related to all other living creatures. However 
far he gets in his development, he is ever groping vain- 
ly in the dark for a door into another world ; but the 
very fact of his reflecting upon the possibility of such a 



220 TIIE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

door shows how high the developed human being tow- 
ers above all his fellow-beings. 

The key to the understanding of the great enigma, 
how these extremes are connected, is furnished in the 
history of the development of the mind of the child. 



APPENDIXES 



A. 

COMPARATIVE OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE ACQUIRE- 
MENT OE SPEECH BY GERMAN AND FOREIGN CHILDREN. 

Among the earlier as among the later statements con- 
cerning the acquirement of speech, there are several that 
have been put forth by writers on the subject without a 
sufficient basis of observed facts. ISTot only Button, but 
also Taine and his successors, have, from a few individual 
cases, deduced general propositions which are not of gen- 
eral application. 

Good observations were first supplied in Germany by 
Berthold Sigismund in his pamphlet, " Kind und Welt " 
(" The Child and the World ") (1856) ; but his observa- 
tions were scanty. 

He noted, as the first articulate sounds made by a child 
from Thuringen (Rudolstadt), ma, la, bu, appa, ange, anne, 
brrr, arrr : these were made about the middle of the first 
three months. 

Sigismund is of the opinion that this first lisping, or 
babbling, consists in the production of syllables with only 
two sounds, of which the consonant is most often the 
first ; that the first consonants distinctly pronounced are 
labials ; that the lips, brought into activity by sucking, are 
the first organs of articulation ; but this conjecture lacks 
general confirmation. 



222 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

In the second three months (in the case of one child in 
the twenty-third week, with other healthy children consid- 
erably earlier) were heard, for the first time, the loud and 
high crotving -sounds, uttered by the child spontaneously, 
jubilantly, with lively movements of the limbs that showed 
the waxing power of the muscles : the child seemed to 
take pleasure in making the sounds. The utterance of 
syllables, on the other hand, is at this period often dis- 
continued for weeks at a time. 

In the third quarter of the first year, the lisping or 
stammering Was more frequent. ]New sounds were added : 
M, fbu, fu j and the following were among those that were 
repeated without cessation, bdbdbd, ddddcld ; also adad, 
eded. 

In the next three months the child manifested his 
satisfaction in any object by the independent sound ei, ei. 
The first imitations of sounds, proved to be such, were 
made after the age of eleven months. But it is more 
significant, for our comprehension of the process of learn- 
ing to speak, that long before the boy tried to imitate 
words or gestures, viz., at the age of nice months, he dis- 
tinguished accurately the words "father, mother, light, 
window, moon, lane " ; for he looked, or pointed, at the 
object designated, as soon as one of these words was 
spoken. 

And when, finally, imitation began, musical tones, e. g., 
F, C, were imitated sooner than the spoken sounds, although 
the former were an octave higher. And the ei, ei, was 
repeated in pretty nearly the same tone or accent in which 
it had been pronounced for the child. Sneezing was not 
imitated till after fourteen months. The first word imi- 
tated by the child of his own accord (after fourteen months) 
was the cry "JSCeuback" (fresh-bake), as it resounded 
from the street ; it was given back by the child, unsoli- 



APPENDIX A. 223 

cited, as ei-a. As late as the sixteenth month he replied 
to the word papa, just as he did to the word Ida, only 
with atta ; yet he had in the mean time learned to under- 
stand " lantern, piano, stove, bird, nine-pin, pot " — in all, 
more than twenty words — and to indicate by a look the 
objects named ; he had also learned to make the new 
imperfect sounds pujeh, pujeh, tupe tupe teh, ammdm, 
atta, ho. 

In the seventeenth month came in place of these 
sounds the babbled syllables mam, mam, mad-am, a-dam, 
das ; in the case of other children, syllables different from 
these. Children often say several syllables in quick suc- 
cession, " then suddenly stop as if they were thinking of 
something new — actually strain, as if they must exert 
themselves to bring their organs to utterance, until at last 
a new sound issues, and then this is repeated like the clack 
of a mill." Along with this appears the frequent doub- 
ling of syllables, as in papa, mama. 

The boy, at twenty months, told his father the follow- 
ing, with pretty long pauses and animated gestures : atten — 
heene — titten — bach — eine — puff — anna, i. e., " Wir waren 
im Garten, haben Beeren und Kirschen gegessen, und in 
den Bach Steine geworf en ; dann kam Anna " (we were 
in the garden, ate berries and cherries, and threw stones 
into the brook ; then Anna came). 

The observations of Sigismund are remarkable for 
their objectivity, their clearness of exposition, and their 
accuracy, and they agree with mine, as may easily be 
seen, in many respects perfectly. Unfortunately, this 
excellent observer (long since deceased) did not finish 
his work. The first part only has appeared. Moreover, 
the statements as to the date of the first imitations (see 
pp. 83, 108, 109, 118, 121) are not wholly in accord with 
one another. 



224 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

I. E. Lobisch, likewise a physician, in his " Entwickel- 
ungsgeschichte der Seele des Kindes " (" History of the 
Development of the Mind of the Child," Vienna, 1851, p. 
68), says : " Naturally the first sound formed in the mouth, 
which is more or less open, while the other organs of 
speech are inactive, is the sound resembling a, which ap- 
proximates sometimes more, sometimes less, nearly to the 
e and the o* 

" Of the consonants the first are those formed by clos- 
ing and opening the lips : m, b, p ; these are at first in- 
distinct and not decidedly differentiated till later ; then 
the m naturally goes not only before the a but also after 
it ; b and p for a long time merely commence a syllable, 
and rarely close one until other consonants also have been 
formed. A child soon says pa, but certainly does not say 
ab until he can already pronounce other consonants also 
(p. 79). 

" The order in which the sounds are produced by the 
child is the following : Of the vowels, first a, e, o, u, of 
course not well distinguished from a at the beginning ; 
the last vowel is i. Of the consonants, m is the first, and 
it passes by way of the w into b and p. But here we may 
express our astonishment that so many writers on the sub- 
ject of the order of succession of the consonants in the 
development of speech have assigned so late a date to the 
formation of the w ; Schwarz puts it even after t, and 
before r and s. Then come d, t; then I and n; n is 
easily combined with d when it precedes d ; next f and 
the gutturals 7i, ch, g, &, the g and h often confounded 
with d and t. S and r are regarded as nearly simultaneous 
in their appearance; the gutturals as coming later, the 
latest of them being ch. Still, there is a difference in this 

* The vowels have the Continental, not the English, sounds. 



APPENDIX A. 225 

respect in different children. For many produce a sound 
resembling r among the first consonant sounds; so too 
a, b, ii ; the diphthongs proper do not come till the 
last." 

These statements of Lobisch, going, as they do, far be- 
yond pure observation, can not all be regarded as haying 
general validity. For most German children, at least, 
even those first adduced can scarcely claim to be well 
founded. 

H. Taine (in the supplement to his book on " Intelli- 
gence," which appeared in a German translation in 1880) 
noted, as expressions used by a French child in the fif- 
teenth month, papa, maman, tete (nurse, evidently a word 
taken from the word titer, " to nurse or suck at the 
breast "), oua-oua (dog, in all probability a word said for 
the child to repeat), JcoJco (cock, no doubt from coq-coq, 
which had been said for the child), dada (horse, carriage, 
indicating other objects also, no doubt ; a demonstrative 
word, as it is with many German children). Tern was 
uttered without meaning for two weeks ; then it signified 
" give, take, look, pay attention." I suspect that we have 
here a mutilation of the strongly accentuated tiens, which 
had probably been often heard. As early as the fourteenth 
month, ham signified "I want to eat" {Jiamm, then am, 
might have had its origin in the echo of / aim, as-tufaim ? 
(are you hungry ?)). At the age of three and a half months 
this child formed only vowels, according to the account ; 
at twelve months she twittered and uttered first m-m, then 
hraaau, papa, with varying intonation, but spoke no word 
with a recognizable meaning. In the tenth month there 
was an understanding of some questions. For the child, 
when asked " Where is grandpapa ? " smiled at the por- 
trait of the grandfather, but not at the one of the grand- 
mother, which was not so good a likeness. In the eleventh 



226 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

month, at the question " Where is mamma ? " the child 
would turn toward her mother, and in like manner toward 
the father at the question, " papa " ? 

A second child observed by Taine made utterances 
that had intellectual significance in the seventh week, for 
the first time. Up to the age of five months ah, gue, 
gre (French) were heard ; in the seventh month, also 
ata, ada. 

In his reflections, attached to these and a few other 
observations of his own, Taine rightly emphasizes the 
great power of generalization and the peculiarity the very 
young child had of associating with words it had heard 
other notions than those common with us; but he as- 
cribes too much to the child's inventive genius. The child 
guesses more than it discovers, and the very cases adduced 
{liamm, tern), on which he lays great weight, may be traced, 
as I remarked above parenthetically, to something heard 
by the child; this fact he seems to have himself quite 
overlooked. It is true, that in the acquirement of speech 
one word may have several different meanings in succes- 
sion, as is especially the case with the word hebe (corre- 
sponding to the English word baby), almost universal with 
French children ; it is not true that a child without imi- 
tation of sounds invents a word with a fixed meaning, and 
that, with no help or suggestion from members of the 
family, it employs its imperfectly uttered syllables (Lall- 
sylben) consistently for designating its ideas. 

Among the notes of Wyma concerning an English 
child (" The Mental Development of the Infant of To- 
day," in the " Journal of Psychological Medicine and 
Mental Pathology," vii, Part I, pp. 62-69, London, April, 
1881), the following, relating to the acquisition of speech, 
are to be mentioned : 

At five months the child began to use a kind of Ian- 



APPENDIX A. 227 

guage, consisting of six words, to indicate a desire or in- 
tention. Ning signified desire for milk, and was employed 
for that np to the age of two years. (The word may pos- 
sibly have been derived from the word milk* frequently 
heard.) At nine months the child made use of the words 
pretty things for animals ; at ten months it formed many 
small sentences. 

The child practiced itself in speaking, even without 
direct imitation of words just spoken, for at the age of 
two years it began to say over a number of nursery rhymes 
that nobody in the house knew, and that could not have 
been learned from other children, because the child had 
no intercourse with such. At a later period the child 
declared that the rhymes had been learned from a former 
nurse, whom it had not seen for nearly three months. 
Thus the articulation was perfecting itself for weeks before 
it was understood. The exercises of the child sounded like 
careless reading aloud. 

The book of Prof. Ludwig Strumpell, of Leipsic, 
" Psychologische Padagogik" (Leipsic, 1880, 368 pages), 
contains an appendix, " Notizen uber die geistige Entwicke- 
lung eines weiblichen Kindes wahrend der ersten zwei 
Lebensjahre " (" Notes on the Mental Development of 
a Female Child during the First Two Years of Life ") ; 
in this are many observations that relate to the learn- 
ing of speech. These are from the years 1846 and 
1847. 

In the tenth week, ah ! ah ! was an utterance of joy ; 
in the thirteenth, the child sings, all alone ; in the nine- 
teenth comes the guttural utterance, grrr, but no conso- 
nant is assigned to this period. In the first half-year are 

* Or possibly for the word drink, which a child of my acquaint- 
ance called ghing. — Editor. 



228 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

heard distinctly, in the order given, ei, aga, eigei, ja, ede, 
dede, eds, edss, emme, meme, nene, nein. In the eighth 
month, there is unmistakable understanding of what is 
said ; e. g., " Where is the tick-tack ? " In the ninth, am, 
amine, op, pap, are said ; she sings vowels that are sung 
for her. In the eleventh month, imitation of sounds is 
frequent, hiss, hiss ; at sight of the tea-kettle, ssi, ssi ; 
she knows all the people in the house ; calls the birds by 
the strange name tibu. Echolalia. In the fourteenth 
month, needles are called tick (sticli = prick or stitch). 
To the question, "Where is Emmy?" the child points, 
correctly, to herself ; says distinctly, Kopf (head), Bucli 
(book), roth (red), Tanie (&xmt),gut (good), Mann (man), 
Baum (tree) ; calls the eye (Auge) oh, Pruscinsky prrti, 
the dog uf, uf. In the seventeenth month, simple sen- 
tences are spoken; she speaks to herself. In the nine- 
teenth month, she calls herself by her name, and counts 
twei, drei, iwipf, exe, ibene, atte, neune (zwei, drei, fiinf, 
sechs, sieben, acht, neun — 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) ; in the twenty- 
second month, she talks a good deal to herself, and makes 
very rapid progress in the correct use of words and the 
formation of sentences. 

From the diary kept by Fran von Strumpell concern- 
ing this daughter and a sister of this one, and kindly 
placed at my disposal in the original, I take the following 
notes : In the eighth month, mamma, in the tenth, papa, 
without meaning. In the eleventh month, the child's 
understanding of what is said to her is surprising, and so 
is her imitation. To " G-uten Tag " (good-day) she re- 
sponds, tata; to "Adieu," adaa. A book, which the 
child likes to turn the leaves of, she calls ade (for a b c). 
The first certain association of a sound learned with a con- 
cept seems to be that of the ee, which has often been said 
to her, with wet, or with what is forbidden. Amme am 



APPENDIX A. 229 

om, "Amme komm" (nurse come) (both imitative), is 
most frequently repeated, papa seldom. The r guttural, 
or rattled, is imperfectly imitated. In the thirteenth 
month, the little girl says, tippa tappa, when she wants to 
he carried, and responds te te to " steh ! steh " (stop) ! She 
now calls the hook a-be-te (for a b c). Pigeons she calls 
kurru ; men, in the picture-book, mann mann. When 
some one asked, " Where is the brush ? " the child made 
the motion of brushing.. To the questions, "Where is 
your ear, your tooth, nose, hand, your fingers, mamma's 
ear, papa's nose ? " etc., she points correctly to the object. 
On her mother's coming into the room, mamam ; her 
father's, papap. When the nurse is gone, amme om, 
amme am. The mother asked some one, " Do you hear ? " 
and the child looked at her and took hold of her own 
ears. To the question, "How do we eat?" she makes 
the motion of eating. She says nein when she means 
to refuse. " Dank " (thank) is pronounced dalchn. 
" Bitte " (I beg, or please) is correctly pronounced. She 
understands the meaning of spoon, dress, mirror, mouth, 
plate, drink, and many other words, and likes to 
hear stories, especially when they contain the words 
already known to her. In the fifteenth month " Ma- 
thilde" is' given by her as tilda and tida. At sight of a 
faded bouquet she said Mom (for Blume, flower). She 
says everything that is said to her, though imperfectly ; 
produces the most varied articulate sounds ; says ta, papa, 
ta when she hands anything to a person ; calls the foot 
(Fuss) pss, lisping and thrusting out the tongue. She 
often says omama and opapa. In the seventeenth month, 
Eing is called ning, Wagen (carriage), uagen, Sophie, 
dsofi, Olga, olla, krank (ill), hank, Pflaume (plum), pluma, 
satt (satisfied, as to hunger), datt, Hande-waschen (wash- 
ing the hands), ander-uaschen, Schuh and Tuch (shoe 
18' 



230 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. 

and cloth), tu, Strumpf (stocking), titmpf, Hut (hat), ut, 
Suppe (soup), duppe. Mama hum bild dat bank, is for 
" Mama komm, ich habe das Bilderbuch, erzahle mir dazu 
etwas, dort setz' Dich zu mir " (M., come, I have the 
picture-book ; tell me something in it ; sit there by me). 
In the eighteenth month, "Where is Omama?" is an- 
swered with im garten ; " How are Omama and Opapa ? " 
with sund (for gesund, well) ; " "What is Omama doing ? " 
with naht (she is sewing). The black Apollo is called 
polio icarz (schwarz, black). 

The sister of this child, in the tenth month, applied 
the word mama to her mother, pap pap and papap to her 
father, but was less sure in this ; tje-te were favorite syl- 
lables. When asked, " Where is Tick-tack ? " she looks at 
the clock on the wall. A piercing scream is an utterance 
of joy. In the fifteenth month, Apapa is her word for 
grandfather, and is roguishly used for grandmother. She 
says aben for "haben" (have), tatta for "Tante" (aunt), 
apa (for uppd) means " I want to go up." Her imitation 
of what is said is very imperfect, but her understanding 
of it is surprising. In the nineteenth month she makes 
much use of her hands in gesture instead of speaking. 
Kuker is her word for " Zucker " (sugar), bildebu for " Bil- 
derbuch " (picture-book). But she habitually calls a book 
omama or opapa (from the letters of her grandparents). 
Clara is pronounced clala, Christine, titine. In the twen- 
tieth month, her mother, after telling her a story, asked, 
" Who, pray, is this, I ? " and the child replied, "Mamma." 
" And who is that, you ? " " Bertha, Bertha " (the child's 
name) was the answer. At this period she said, Bertha 
will ; also paren (for fahren, drive), pollen (fallen, fall), 
bot, (Brot, bread), atig (artig, good, well-behaved), mal 
(noch einmal, once more), muna (Mund, mouth), aujen 
(Augen, eyes), ol (Ohr, ear), tirn (Stirn, forehead), ivanne 



APPENDIX A. 231 

(Wange, cheek, and Wanne, bath-tub), aua (August), 
dute (gute) mama, pdsche (Equipage), ivasar tinken (Was- 
ser trinken, drink water) ddbel (Gabel, fork), Missel 
(Schliissel, key), is nits (ist nichts, is nothing), mala 
(Milch, milk), ass (heiss, hot). 

Another remarkable observation is the following from 
the fifteenth month. It reminds one of the behavior of 
hypnotized adults. On her grandmother's birthday the 
child said some rhymes that she did not easily remember 
(there were six short verses, thirty-four words). One night 
soon after the birthday festival the little girl said off the 
verses, " almost for the first time without any stumbling, 
in her sleep." 

From this we see how much more quickly in regard 
to articulation and independent use of words both these 
girls (the first of whom weighed only six pounds at birth) 
learned to speak than did Sigismund's boy, my own boy, 
and others. 

Darwin observed {A Biographical Sketch of an Infant 
in " Mind, a Quarterly Eeview of Psychology and Philoso- 
phy," July, 1877, pp. 285-294) in a son of his, on the 
forty-seventh day of his life, a formation of sounds with- 
out meaning. The child took pleasure in it. The sounds 
soon became manifold. In the sixth month he uttered 
the sound da without any meaning ; but in the fifth he 
probably began to try to imitate sounds. In the tenth 
month the imitation of sounds was unmistakable. In the 
twelfth he could readily imitate all sorts of actions, such 
as shaking his head and saying "Ah." He also under- 
stood intonations, gestures, several words, and short sen- 
tences. When exactly seven months old, the child associ- 
ated his nurse with her name, so that when it was called out 
he would look round for her. In the thirteenth month 
the boy used gestures to explain his wishes ; for instance, 



232 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

he picked up a bit of paper and gave it to his father, 
pointing to the fire, as he had often seen and liked to see 
paper burned. At exactly the age of a year he called 
food mum, which also signified " Give me food," and he 
used this word instead of beginning to cry as formerly. 
This word with affixes signified particular things to eat ; 
thus shu-mum signified sugar, and a little later licorice 
was called Made- shu-mum. "When asking for food by the 
word mum he gave to it a very strongly marked tone of 
longing (Darwin says an " interrogatory sound," which 
should mean the same thing). It is remarkable that my 
child also, and in the tenth week for the first time, said 
m'omm when he was hungry, and that a child observed by 
Fritz Schulfcze (Dresden) said mam-mam. Probably the 
syllable has its origin from the primitive syllable ma and 
from hearing the word "mamma" when placed at the 
breast of the mother. 

Of the facts communicated by the physiologist Vier- 
ordt concerning the language of the child ("Deutsche 
Eevue" of January, 1879, Berlin, pp. 29-46) should be 
mentioned this, that a babe in its second month expressed 
pleasure by the vowel a, the opposite feeling by a. This 
is true of many other children also. In the third and 
fourth months the following syllables were recognizable : 
mam, amma,fu, pfu, ess, dng, anglca, aclia, erra, hah. A 
lisping babe said, countless times, hob, hob, ha. These 
syllables coincide in part with those given by other ob- 
servers. The pf and ss only have not been heard by me 
at this age, and I doubt whether /, for which teeth are 
needed, was produced with purity so early. In the second 
and third years a child pronounced the following words : 
lei (for bos, naughty) ; bebe (Besen, beesann, broom) ; 
webbe (Wasser, ivatja, water) ; wewe (Lowe, loivee, lion) ; 
ewebau (Elephant, elafant) ; webenau (Fledermaus, leba- 



APPENDIX A. 233 

rnaunz, bat) ; babaube (Blasebalg, ba-abats, bellows) ; ade 
(Hase, hare) ; emele (Schemel, footstool) ; gigod (Schild- 
krote, tortoise). 

These examples illustrate very well the mogilalia and 
paralalia that exist in every child, bnt with differences in 
each individual. Sigmatism and parasigmatism and para- 
lambdacism are strongly marked. At the same time the 
influence of dialect is perceptible (Tubingen). The pro- 
nunciations given in parentheses in the above instances 
were regularly used by my boy in his twenty-sixth month 
when he saw the pictures of the objects named in his 
picture-book. (In Jena.) One would not suppose before- 
hand that watja and webbe have the same meaning. From 
the ten examples may be seen, further, that /, I, r, s, t pre- 
sent more difficulties of articulation than b, w, m, g, and 
d ; but neither must this be made a general conclusion. 
The w (on account of the teeth) regularly comes later than 
the b, m, and r. 

In the third year Vierordt noted down the following nar- 
ration. I put in brackets the words omitted by the child : 

id. mama . . papa gage [Es] ist [eine] mama [und ein] papa 

gewesen 
unn die hale wai didi gait und diese haben zwei Kinder gehabt, 
unn. didi . . . icaud. und [die] Kinder [sind in den] Wald 

[gegangen] 
unn habe olid duh und haben Holz geholt ; 

na . . an e gugeeide guju dann [sind sie] an ein Zuckerhauschen 

gegangen 
unn habe gctg und haben gegessen ; 

no ad die egg gag dann hat die Hexe gesagt : 

nag nag neidi " Nueker, Nucker Neisle 

wie. immi. eidi wer [krabbelt] mir am Hausle 1 " 

no habe die didi gag dann haben die Kinder gesagt : 

die wid, de immi immi wid [" Der Wind, der Wind, das himmlisehe 

Kind"] Der Wind, der himmlisehe, 

himmlisehe Wind. 



234 THE MIND OF TILE CHILD. 

(There were once a mama and a papa, and they had two children. 
And the children went into the woods and fetched wood. Then 
they came to a little sugar house and ate. Then the witch said : 
"Nucker, Nucker Neisle, who is crawling in my little house?" 
Then the children said : " The wind, the wind, the heavenly child " 
— The wind, the heavenly, heavenly wind.) 

I told the same story to my boy for tlie first time when 
he was two years and eighteen days old. He repeated, 
with an effort : 

Uss ets aine mama unn ain papa edam (toesen). 

unn (uni) diesa afoi wais (twai) kinna {tinder') gliatf 
(dehappt). 

unn die hinna sint (dsint) in den limit tegang (gan- 
gen). 

unn-daben (Jidbn) holz (olz) gehol (olilt). 

dann sint (dsint) sie an ain utsom-lidndom (zuke- 
hanssn) zezan (gangn). 

unn (unt) liabn (aim) ge . . . (dessen). 

dann hatt die lietse (hekksee) dsa (tsaht). 

nanuck {mike nuke) nana nainle (naisle). 

wer . . (drabbelt) mir am liaultje (dusle). 

dann baben (habn) die . . . (tinder) ze-a (dsagt). 

der tuieds (wind) . . . (der fint). 
. dser ivenn daz (das) himmeld (immlis) kliint (tint). 

Where the periods are, his attempts were all vain. 
At any rate, he would say pta-pta as he usually did in 
fruitless efforts at imitating sounds. Just two months 
after these first attempts, the same child recited for me 
the narrative, using the expressions in the parentheses; 
this indicated a distinct progress in articulation. A year 
after the first attempt, he easily repeated the whole, with 
only a single error. He still said himmeld^ and then 
himmliss, for "himmlische." 



APPENDIX A. 



235 



A third boy (Dusseldorf) repeated the narrative much 
better, as early as his twenty-fifth month. He made only 
the following errors, which were noted by his mother, and 
kindly communicated by her to me : 



geivesa 


for gewesen 


fed 


geliat 


" gehabt 


kinner 


gehat ) 
gehaJd ) 


" gesagt 


ivlad 
hol-l-l-t 


gegannen 


" gegangen 


uckerha 


hamen 


" haben 


hekes 


hind hie 


" sind sie 


neissel 


Jcabbell 


" krabbelt 


haussel 


himmli-he 


" himmlisehe 





for zwei 
" kinder 
" Wald 
" Holz 
ucTcerhdussen " Zuckerhausehen 
" Hexe 
" neisle 
" Hausle 



The ss between two vowels was imperfect, reminding 
one of the English " th " and the German " sch " and " s." 
The child could not at this time be brought to learn by 
heart. 

We see, from these three versions, how unequal the 
capacity for articulation is in its development, and how 
varied it is in regard to the omission of difficult conso- 
nants and the substitution of others in place of them, as 
well as in regard to transposition, e. g., in wand, wait, 
wlad (Wald), ivenn, wid, wieds, fint (Wind) — and this 
even in the same individual. 

As no one thus far has instituted comparisons of this 
sort, one more example may be given. The verses 
taught by Sigismund to his child (for whom I use the 
sign S) of twenty- one months, were often repeated by 
my boy (A), of twenty-five months, to me, and by the 
boy from Dusseldorf (D), in his twenty-fifth month, to 
his mother : 



238 



THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 



S. 



A. 



D. 



Guter 
Mond 


21st month, 
tute 
bohnd 


25th month, 
tuten 

monn 


27th month. 
tuter 
mond 


25th month, 
guter 
Mund 


Du gehst 
so stille 


du tehz 
so tinne 


du gehts 
so tilte 


du dehst 
so tille 


du gehs 
ho tille 


durch die 


duch die 


durch die 


durch die 


durch die 


Abendwolken aten-bonten 


aben-woltn 


abend vvolkn abehtwolken 


bin 


in 


in 


in 


hin 


gehst so 
traurig 
und ich 


tehz so gehts so 
tautech (atich) treuja 
und ich nnn ich 


dehst so 
trauig 
und ich 


gehs so 
terauhig 
und ich 


flihle 


biine 


felam 


flihle 


fiihle 


dass ich 


dass ich 


dess ich 


dass ich 


dass ich 


ohne Ruhe 


one ule 


ohno ruhge 


ohne ruhe 


ohni ruhe 


bin 


bin 


bin 


bin 


bin 


Guter 
Mond 


tute 
bohnd 


hotten 
mohn 


tuter 
mond 


guter 
mond 


du darfst 


du atz 


du daf p 


du darfst 


du darf 


es wissen 


es bitten 


es witsen 


es wissen 


es wissen 


weil du so 


bein du so 


leil du so 


weil du so 


weil du ho 


verschwiegen 


bieten 


wereidsam 


verwiegen 


werwiegen 


bist 


bitz 


bits 


bist 


bits 


warum 


amum 


wa-um 


warum 


wahum 


meine 


meine 


meine 


meinhe 


meine 


Thranen 


tanen 


tanen 


thranen 


tanen 


fliessen 


bieten 


flietjam 


fliessen 


fliessen 


und mein 


und mein 


nnd mein 


und mein 


nnd mein 


Herz so 


atz so 


hetz so 


erst so 


hetz ho 


traurig ist 


atich iz 


treutjam its 


i trauig ist 


taudig ist 


Errors 


24 


26 


13 


18 



The errors are very unlike, and are characteristic for 
each child. The fact that in the case of A the errors 
diminished by half within two months is to be explained 
by frequency of recitation. I may add that the inclina- 
tion to recite was so often lacking that a good deal of 
pains was required to bring the child to it. 

From the vocabulary of the second year of the child's 



APPENDIX A. 



237 



life, according to the observations of Sigismund and my- 
self, the following words of freqnent nse are also worthy 
of notice : 



f Vater 


Mutter 


Anna 


Milch 


Kuh 


Pferd 


(father) 


(mother) 




(milk) 


(cow) 


(horse) 


c J atte 
1 atte 


amme 


anne 


minne 


mull 


hotto 


dmme 








dodo 


1 tate 


dmmam 








pad 


I fatte 


mamme 
matte 










( va-ata 


mama 


anna 


mimi 


mumuh 


otto 


P 

' ( papa 








mukuh 


pfowed 
fowid 


Yogel 


Mund 


Nase 


Ohr Haare Finger 


Da 


(bird) 


(mouth) 


(nose) 


(ear) (hair) 


(there) 


S. piep-piep 


mund 


ase 


ohn ale 


jinne 


da 


P. piep, pipiep mum 


nane 


o-a lia-i 


( wi-er 


da 


Adieu 


Guten Tag 


Fort Ja 




Nein 




(good-day) 


(away) (yes) 


(no) 


S. ade 


tag 


fot ja 




nein 


P. adjee 


tatach 


wott ja 


; jaja 


neinein 


Grossmutter Kuk 


Zueker 


Karl 


Grete 


(grandmother) 




(sugar) 






t tosuite 
S. -j abutte 
( osmutte 


o-tute 


zucke 


all 


ete 






















( a-mama 
' 1 e-mama 


kuk 


ucka 


kara 


dete 













Sigismund noticed the following names of animals (in 
imitation of words given to the children) : M, put, gih- 
gak, wakioak, liulm, iliz (Hinz). I did not find these 
with my child. Sigismund likewise observed baie-haie for 
Wiege (cradle), which my child was not acquainted with ; 
papa for verborgen (hidden) ; eichonten for Eichhornchen 



238 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

(squirrel) ; dpften for Apfelchen (little apple) ; mddsen 
and mddis for Madchen (girl) ; atatt for Bernhard ; liun- 
dis for Hundchen, the Thiiringian form of Hiindchen 
(little dog) ; pot for Topf (pot) ; dot for dort (yonder). 
On the other hand, both children used wehweh for Schmerz 
(pain) ; caput for zerbrochen (broken to pieces) ; schoos, 
sooss for " auf den Schooss mocht ich " (I want to get up 
in the lap) ; auf for " hinauf mochte ich gehoben werden " 
(I want to be taken up) ; toicli for Storch (stork) ; tul for 
Stuhl (chair). A third child in my presence called his 
grandmother mama-mama, i. e., twice-mamina, in distinc- 
tion from the mother. This, however, does not necessarily 
imply a gift for invention, as the expression " Mamma's 
Mamma" may have been used of the grandmother in 
speaking to the child. 

Other children of the same age do very much the same. 
The boy D, though he repeated cleverly what was said, 
was not good at naming objects when he was expected to 
do this of himself. He would say, e. g., pilla for Spiegel 
(mirror). At this same period (twenty-five months) he 
could not yet give the softened or liquid sound of conso- 
nants (mouilliren). He said n and * and a very plainly, 
and also i-a, but not nja, and not once " ja " ; but, on 
the contrary, always turned away angrily when his father 
or I, or others, required it of him. But as late as the 
twenty-eighth month echolalia was present in the highest 
degree in this very vigorous and intelligent child, for he 
would at times repeat mechanically the last word of every 
sentence spoken in his hearing, and even a single word, 
e. g., when some one asked "Warum?" (why) he likewise 
said ivarum without answering the question, and lie con- 
tinued to do it for days again and again in a vacant way, 
with and without the tone of interrogation (which he did 
not understand). From this we see again plainly that the 



APPENDIX A. 239 

imitation of sounds is independent of the understanding 
of them, but is dependent on the functions of articu- 
lation. 

These functions are discussed by themselves in the 
work of Prof. Fritz Schultze, of Dresden, " Die Spraclie 
des Kindes " (" The Language of the Child," Leipsic, 
1880, 44 pp.). The author defends in this the " principle 
of the least effort." He thinks the child begins with the 
sounds that are made with the least physiological effort, 
and proceeds gradually to the more difficult sounds, i. e., 
those which require more " labor of nerve and muscle." 
This " law " is nothing else than the " loi du moindre ef- 
fort " which is to be traced back to Maupertuis, and 
which was long ago applied to the beginnings of articula- 
tion in children : e. g., by Buffon in 1749 (" (Euvres com- 
pletes," Paris, 1844, iv, pp. 68, 69), and, in spite of Littre, 
again quite recently by B. Perez * (" Les trois premieres 
Annees de 1'Enfant," Paris, 1878, pp. 228-230, seq.) But 
this supposed " law " is opposed by many facts which have 
been presented in this chapter and the preceding one. 
The impossibility of determining the degree of " physio- 
logical effort " required for each separate sound in the 
child, moreover, is well known. Besides, every sound may 
be produced with very unequal expenditure of force ; but 
the facts referred to are enough for refutation of the the- 
ory. According to Schultze, e. g., the vowels ought, in 
the process of development of the child's speech, to appear 
in the following order, separated in time by long intervals : 
1.1; 2. A; 3. IT; 4. 0; 5. E; 6. I; 7. 0; 8. U. It is 
correct that a is one of the vowels that may be first plainly 
distinguished; but neither is it the first vowel audible 



* « The First Three Years of Childhood," edited and translated 
by Alice M. Christie ; published in Chicago, 1885. 



240 THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

—on the contrary, the first audible vowel is indistinct, 
and imperfectly articulated vowels are the first — nor can 
we admit that a is produced with less of effort than is 
a. The reverse is the case. Further, o is said to present 
" enormous difficulties," and hence has the place next to 
the last ; but I have often heard the o, short and long, per- 
fectly pure in the second month, long before the i, and 
that not in my child alone. From the observations upon 
the latter, the order of succession appears to be the follow- 
ing : Indeterminate vowels, u, a, a, o, 0, ai, ao, i, e, il, oeu 
(French sound in coeur), cm, oi. Thus, for the above 
eight vowels, instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, the order 3, 1, 
2, 7, 4, 6, 5, 8, so that only i and il keep their place. But 
other children give a varying order, and these differ- 
ences in the order of succession of vowels as well as of con- 
sonants will certainly not be referred to the " influence of 
heredity." Two factors of quite another sort are, on the 
contrary, to be taken into account here in the case of every 
normal child without exception, apart from the unavoid- 
able errors in every assigned order growing out of incom- 
plete observation. In the earliest period and when the 
babbling monologues begin, the cavity of the mouth takes 
on an infinitely manifold variety of forms — the lips, tongue, 
lower jaw, larynx, are moved, and in a greater variety of 
ways than ever afterward. At the same time there is ex- 
piration, often loud expiration, and thus originates entire- 
ly at random sometimes one sound, sometimes another. 
The child hears sounds and tones new to him, hears his 
own voice, takes pleasure in it, and delights in making 
sounds, as he does in moving his limbs in the bath. It is 
natural that he should find more pleasure in some sounds, 
in others less. The first are more frequently made by him 
on account of the motor memories that are associated with 
the acoustic memories, and an observer does not hear the 



APPENDIX A. 241 

others at all if he observes the child only from time to 
time. In fact, however, almost all simple sounds, even the 
most difficult, are formed in purity before they are used 
in speaking in the first eight months — most frequently 
those that give the child pleasure, that satisfy his desires, 
or lessen his discomfort. It is not to be forgotten that 
even the a, which requires effort on account of the drawing 
back and spreading out of the tongue, diminishes discom- 
fort. The fretful babe feels better when he cries u-a than 
when he keeps silent. The second factor is determined by 
the surroundings of the child. Those sounds which the 
child distinctly hears he will be able to imitate correctly 
sooner than he will other sounds : but he will be in condi- 
tion to hear most correctly, first of all, the sounds that are 
most frequent, just "because these most frequently excite 
the auditory nerve and its tract in the brain ; secondly, 
among these sounds that are acoustically most sharply de- 
fined, viz., first the vowels, then the resonants (m, n, ng) ; 
last, the compound " friction-sounds " (fl, schl). But it is 
only in part that the surroundings determine this order 
of succession for the sounds. Another thing that partly 
determines and modifies this order is the child's own un- 
wearied practice in forming consonant-sounds. He hears 
his own voice now better than he did at an earlier period 
when he was forming vowels only. He most easily retains 
and repeats, among the infinitely manifold consonants 
that are produced by loud expiration, those which have 
been distinctly heard by him. This is owing to the asso- 
ciation of the motor and the acoustic memory-image in 
the brain. These are the most frequent in his speech. 
Not until later does the mechanical difficulty of articula- 
tion exert an influence, and this comes in at the learning 
of the compound sounds. Hence there can not be any 
chronological order of succession of sounds that holds 



242 THE MIND OF THE CniLD. 

good universally in the language of the child, because each 
language has a different order in regard to the frequency 
of appearance of the sounds ; but heredity can have no in- 
fluence here, because eyery child of average gifts, though 
it may hear from its birth a language unknown to its an- 
cestors, if it hears no other, yet learns to speak this lan- 
guage perfectly. What is hereditary is the great plas- 
ticity of the entire apparatus of speech, the voice, and with 
it a number of sounds that are not acquired, as m. An 
essential reason for the defective formation of sounds in 
children born deaf is the fact that they do not hear their 
own voice. This defect may also be hereditary. 

The treatise of F. Schultze contains, besides, many good 
remarks upon the technique of the language of the child, 
but, as they are of inferior psychogenetic interest, they need 
not be particularly mentioned here. Others of them are 
only partially confirmed by the observations, as is shown 
by a comparison with what follows. 

G-ustav Lindner (" Twelfth Annual Report of the 
Lehrer-seminars at Zschopau," 1882, p. 13) heard from 
his daughter, in her ninth week, arra or drrd, which was 
uttered for months. Also dckn appeared early. The 
principle of the least effort Lindner finds to be almost ab- 
solutely refuted by his observations. He rightly remarks 
that the frequent repetitions of the same groups of sounds, 
in the babbling monologues, are due in part to a kind of 
pleasure in success, such as urges adults also to repeat 
their successful efforts. Thus his child used to imitate 
the reading of the newspaper (in the second half-year) by 
degattegattegatte. In the eleventh and twelfth months 
the following were utterances of hers in repeating words 
heard : omama, oia (Eosa), batta (Bertha), dchard (Eich- 
ard), wiwi (Friedchen), agga (Martha), olla olla (Olga, her 
own name). Milch (milk) she called mimi, Stuhl (chair) 



APPENDIX A. 243 

tichl, Laterne (lantern), Jcatonne, the whistle of an engine 
in a neighboring factory, wuh (prolonged, onomatopoetic), 
Paul, gouch, danke (thank you), dagn or dagni, Baum (tree), 
maum. Another child substituted u for i and e, saying 
hund for " Kind," and uluwant for " Elephant " ; thus, ein 
fomme hund lass wade much for " ein frommes Kind lass 
werden mich " (let me become a pious child). Lindner's 
child, however, called "werden" not wade but wegen ; 
and " turnen " she called tung, " blau " balau. At the end 
of the second year no sound in the German language pre- 
sented difficulties to the child. Her pronunciation was, 
however, still incorrect, for the correct pronunciation of 
the separate sounds does not by any means carry with it 
the pronunciation of them in their combinations. This 
remark of Lindner's is directly to the point, and is also 
confirmed, as I find, by the first attempts of the child of 
four years to read a word after having learned the separate 
letters. The learning of the correct pronunciation is also 
delayed by the child's preference of his original incorrect 
pronunciation, to which he is accustomed, and which is 
encouraged by imitations of it on the part of his relatives. 
Lindner illustrates this by good examples. His child con- 
tinued to say mimela after " Kamilla " was easy for him. 
Not till the family stopped saying it did " Kamilla " take 
its place. At the age of three and a half years the child 
still said gebhalten for " behalten " and vervloren for " ver- 
loren," as well as gebhute for " behute." " Grosspapa " 
was called successively opapa, gropapa, grosspapa. Gross- 
mama had a corresponding development. " Fleisch " 
(meat) was first called jeich, then leisch ; " Kartofieln " 
(potatoes) kaffom, then haftoffehi ; " Zschopau " sopau, 
schodau, tschopau ; " Sparbiichse " (savings-box) iaMchse, 
spabiclise, spassiilchse, sparzMchse ; " Haring " (herring, 
also gold-fish) hanging. A sound out of the second sylla- 



244 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ble goes into the first. The first question, isn das ? from 
" Was ist denn das ? " (what is that, pray ?) was noticed in 
the twentieth month ; the interrogative word was ? (what) 
in the twenty-second month. Wo ? (where) and Wohin ? 
(whither) had the same meaning (that of the French oil ?), 
and this as late as in the fourth year. The word " Ich " 
(I) made its appearance in the thirtieth month. As to 
verbs, it is to be mentioned that, with the child at two 
years of age, before the use of the tenses there came the 
special word denoting activity in general : thus he said, 
when looking at a head of Christ by Guido Reni, thut 
beten, instead of " betet " (" does pray," instead of " prays "). 
The verb " sein " (be) was very much distorted : Warum 
warst du nicht fleissig gebist ? (gebist for gewesen) (why 
have you not been industrious?). (Of., pp. 172, 177.) He 
inflected bin, Must (for bist), bint (ist), binn (sind), bint 
(sind and seid), #i'?m (sind). Further, wir isn (wir sind, 
we are), and nun sei ich ruhig (sei for bin) (now I am 
quiet), and ich habe nicht ruhig geseit (habe for " bin " 
and geseit for " gewesen ") (I have not been quiet), are 
worthy of note, because they show how strong an influence 
in the formation of words during the transition period is 
exerted by the forms most frequently heard — here the im- 
perative. The child used first of all the imperative ; last 
the subjunctive. The superlative and comparative were 
not used by this child until the fourth year. 

The observations of Lindner (edited anew in the peri- 
odical " Kosmos " for 1882) are among the best we have. 

In the case of four brothers and sisters, whose mother, 
Frau Dr. Friedemann, of Berlin, has most kindly placed 
at my disposal trustworthy observations concerning them, 
the first articulate sounds heard were ard, hdgd, ache, and 
a deep guttural, rattling or snarling sound (Schnarren) ; 
but the last was heard from only one of the children. 



APPENDIX A. 245 

The above syllables contain three consonants (r, h, ch) that 
are declared by many, wrongly, to be very late in their ap- 
pearance. These children in their first attempts at speak- 
ing often left out the first consonant of a word pronounced 
for them, or else substituted for it the one last heard, as 
if their memory were not equal to the retaining of the 
sounds heard first : e. g., in the fifteenth month they 
would say te, t for Hut (hat), Bale for Rosalie ; in the 
twenty-fourth, Tcanhe for danke (thank you), hecke for 
Deche (covering), Jcucker for Zucher (sugar), huch, liuclie 
for Schuh, Schuhe (shoe, shoes), fifteenth month. In the 
last two cases comes in, to explain the omission, also the 
mechanical difficulty of the Z and Sch. The oldest of 
these children, a girl, when a year old, used to say, when 
she refused anything, ateta, with a shake of the head. 
She knew her own image in the glass, and pointed at it, 
saying taU (for Kate). In the following table the Roman 
figures stand for the month ; F 1? F 2 , F 3 , F 4 , for the four 
children in the order of their ages. No further explana- 
tion will be needed : 

VIII. papa distinctly (F t ) ; dada, da, deda, first sylla- 
bles (F 4 ) ; derta for Bertha (F t ). 

X. dada, name for all possible objects (F 2 ) ; papa (F 3 ) ; 
ada, mama, detta (F 4 ). 

XII. puppe (doll) correctly ; tdte for Kate (F t ) ; ida, 
papa, tata for Tante (aunt) ; tdte (F 4 ). 

XIII. mama, detta for Bertha ; wauwau (F 2 ) ; lata (F 4 ). 

XIV. la for laden (bathe) (F 2 ). 

XV. hia for Ida ; ate for artig (well-behaved) ; da for 
danhe ; lappen for essen (eat) ; piep ; ja, nein (yes, no) 
correctly (Fj). 

XVI. ei (egg) correctly ; feisch for Fleisch (meat) ; 
waffer for Wasser (water); wuffe for Suppe (Fj) ; tatte 
for Tante; tittak ; Hut (F 3 ). 

19 



246 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

XIX. at for Katze (cat) ; dull for Kuh (cow) ; wan for 
Schiuan (swan) ; nine for Kaninchen (rabbit) ; betta for 
Blatter (leaves) ; butta for Butterblume (buttercup) ; fiede- 
mann for Friedemann ; tati for Kati (F a ) ; gad for gerade 
(straight) ; humm for hrumm (crooked) (F 3 ). 

XX. fidat for Zivieback (biscuit) ; tierdatten for Thier- 
garten (zoological garden) ; waden for wagen (carriage) ; 
nahnaden for Nahnadel (needle) ; wetuette for serviette 
(napkin) ; teid for Kleid (dress) ; weife for Seife (soap) ; 
famm for Schiuamm (sponge) ; tonnat for Konrad ; potne 
for Portemonnaie ; hauf for lierauf (up here) ; limit a for 
herunter (down here) ; Mfa& ^?a/?a for &e#er (dear) papa 
(F t ) ; M for Thilr (door) ; ban for bauen (build) ; teta for 
Kate ; manna for Amanda ; ta for ^rwfow- T«^ (good-day) ; 
leu for Kugel (ball) (F 2 ) ; appudieJi for Apfelmuss (apple- 
sauce) ; m&A for Milch (milk) ; ule pomm for Ulrich 
homm (Ulrich come) ; hu for Kuclien (cake) ; lilte for 
Matliilde (F 3 ). 

XXI. teine for Steine (stones) ; bimelein for Bliime- 
lein (little flowers) ; mamase for Mamaclien (little mama) ; 
tettern for Met tern (climb) ; P«/j« wern^ %£g (Papa doesn't 
cry), first sentence (F a ) ; Mamase, Tate artig — T^ss (means 
Mamaclien, Kate ist wieder artig, gib ihr einen Kuss) 
(Mamma, darling, Katy is good again, give her a kiss) 
(Fj) ; Amanda's Hut, Mamases Hirm (for Schirm) (Aman- 
da's hat, mamma's umbrella), first use of the genitive case 
(F t ) ; Mein Bucli (my book) ; dein Ball (thy ball) (F^ ; 
das f for teas ist das 9 (what is that ?) in the tone of in- 
terrogation (Fj) dida for Ida ; lata for Rosalie ; fadi for 
Falme (flag) ; bikla for Briiderchen (little brother) ; liu-e 
for Scliulie (shoes) ; mai maicli, for meine Milch (my milk) 

XXII. husch for Kuss (kiss) ; s<?7i generally used in- 
stead of s for months (F 3 ). 



APPENDS a. 247 

XXIII. koka for Cacao ; batt for Bett (bed) ; emmu 
for Hellmatli (light-heartedness) ; nanna mommom (Bon- 
bon) ; papa, appel for Papa, bitte einen Apfel (Papa, 
please, an apple) (F 2 ) ; petsclier for Schtvester (sister) ; till 
for still ; Mis for Ililch ; liiba vata for lieber Vater (dear 
father) (F 3 ). 

XXIV. pija eine for eine Fliege (a fly) ; pipik for 
Musik. Sentences begin to be formed (F 3 ). 

XXV. pater for Vater (father) ; appelsine for Apfel- 
sine (orange) (F 2 ). 

All these observations confirm my results in regard to 
articulation, viz., that in very many cases the more diffi- 
cult sounds, i. e., those that require a more complicated 
muscular action, are either omitted or have their places 
supplied by others ; but this rule does not by any means 
hold good universally : e. g., the sound preferred by F 3 , 
sch, is more difficult than s, and my child very often 
failed to produce it as late as the first half of the fourth 
year. 

In the twenty-second month, in the case of the intelli- 
gent little girl F 1? numbering began suddenly. She took 
small stones from a table in the garden, one after another, 
and counted them distinctly up to the ninth. The per- 
sons present could not explain this surprising perform- 
ance (for the child had not learned to count) until it was 
discovered that on the previous day some one had counted 
the stairs for the child in going up. My child did not be- 
gin to count till the twenty-ninth month, and, indeed, al- 
though he knew the numbers (their names, not their 
meaning), he counted only by adding one to one (cf. 
above, p. 172). Sigismund's boy, long before he formed 
sentences, on seeing two horsemen, one following the other 
at a short interval, said, eite (for Reiter) ! nodi eins I This 
proves the activity of the faculty of numbering. 



248 THE HI1\ T D OF THE CHILD. 

The boy F 3 , at the age of two and two thirds years, still 
said scliank for Sclirank and nopf for Knopf, and, on be- 
ing told to say Sch-r-ank plainly, he said rrr-sclicmk. 
This child from the thirty-first month on made mnch nse 
of the interrogative words. Warum ? weshalb ? he asked 
at every opportunity; very often, too, was? werf too? 
(Why ? wherefore ? what ? who ? where ?) ; sometimes was ? 
four or five times when he had been spoken to. When 
the meaning of what had been said was made plain, then 
the child stopped asking questions. 

The little girl F 4 , in her thirteenth month, always says, 
when she sees a clock, didda (for " tick-tack," which has 
been said to her), and imitates with her finger the move- 
ment of the pendulum. It was noticed of this child that, 
when not yet five months old, she would accompany a 
song, sung for her by her mother, with a continuous, 
drawling ah-ali-ah ; but, as soon as the mother stopped, 
the child became silent also. The experiment was one 
day (the one hundred and forty-fifth of the child's life) 
repeated nine times, with the same result. 

I have myself repeatedly observed that babes in the 
fourth month respond to words spoken in a forcible, pleas- 
ant manner with sounds indeterminate often, with 6-e 
and other vowels. There is no imitation in this, but a re- 
action that is possible only through participation of the 
cerebrum, as in the case of the joyous sounds at music at 
an earlier period. 

The date at which the words heard from members of 
the family are for the first time clearly imitated, and the 
time when the words of the mother-tongue are first used 
independently, depends, undoubtedly, with children in 
sound condition, chiefly upon the extent to which people 
occupy themselves with the children. According to Heinr. 
Feldmann (Be statu normali functionum corporis hu~ 



APPENDIX A. 249 

mani. Inaugural dissertation, Bonn, 1833, p. 3), thirty- 
three children spoke for the first time {prima verba fece- 
runt) as follows : 

14 15 16 17 18 19 Month. 

1 8 19 3 1 1 . Children. 

Of these there could walk alone 

8 9 10 11 12 Month. 

3 24 - G Children. 

According to this, it is generally the case (the author 
presumably observed Khenish children) that the first inde- 
pendent step is taken in walking several months earlier 
than the first word is spoken. But the statement of Hey- 
felder is not correct, that the average time at which sound 
children learn to walk (" laufen lernen ") comes almost ex- 
actly at the completion of the twelfth month. The greater 
part of them are said by him to begin to walk a few days 
before or after the 365th day. E. Demme observed that 
the greater part began to walk between the twelfth and 
eighteenth months, and my inquiries yield a similar result. 
Sigismund's boy could run before he imitated words and 
gestures, and he did not yet form a sentence when he had 
more than sixty words at his command. Of two sisters, 
the elder could not creep in her thirteenth month, could 
walk alone for the first time in the fifteenth month, step 
over a threshold alone in the eighteenth, jump down alone 
from a threshold in the nineteenth, run nimbly in the 
twentieth; the younger, on the other hand, could creep 
alone cleverly at the beginning of the tenth month, even 
over thresholds, could take the first unsteady steps alone 
in the thirteenth, and stride securely over the threshold 
alone in the fifteenth. In spite of this considerable start 
the younger child was not, by a great deal, so far advanced 



250 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

in articulation, in repeating words after others, and in the 
use of words, in her fifteenth month, as the elder was in 
her fifteenth. The latter spoke before she walked, the 
former ran before she spoke (Frau von Strumpell). My 
child could imitate gestures (beckoning, clinching the fist, 
nodding the head) and single syllables (heiss), before he 
could walk, and did not learn to speak till after that; 
whereas the child observed by Wyma could stand firmly at 
nine months, and walk soon after, and he spoke at the 
same age. Inasmuch as in such statistical materials the 
important thing is to know what is meant by " speaking 
for the first time," whether it be saying mama, or imitat- 
ing, or using correctly a word of the language that is to 
be spoken later, or forming a sentence of more than one 
word — and yet on these points data are lacking — we can not 
regard the laborious inquiries and collections as of much 
value. Children in sound condition walk for the most 
part before they speak, and understand what is said long 
before they walk. A healthy boy, born on the 13th of 
July, 1873, ran alone for the first time on the 1st of No- 
vember, 1874, and formed his first sentence, Ma muta ji 
(" Marie ! die Mutter ist ausgegangen," /{ = adieu) (Mary, 
mother has gone out), on the 21st of November, 1875, thus 
a full year later (Schulte). 

More important, psychogenetically, are observations 
concerning the forming of new words with a definite 
meaning before learning to speak — words not to be con- 
sidered as mutilations, imperfectly imitated or onomato- 
poetic forms (these, too, would be imitations), or as original 
primitive interjections. In spite of observations and in- 
quiries directed especially to this point, I have not been 
able to make sure that any inventions of that sort are 
made before there has taken place, through the medium 
of the child's relatives, the first association of ideas with 



APPENDIX A. 251 

articulate sounds and syllables. There is no reason for 
supposing them to be made by children. According to 
the foregoing data, they are not thus made. All the in- 
stances of word-inventions of a little boy, communicated 
by Prof. S. S. Haldemann, of the University at Philadel- 
phia, in his " Note on the Invention of Words " (" Pro- 
ceedings of the American Philological Association," July 
14, 1880) are, like those noted by Taine, by Holden (see 
below), by myself, and others, onomatopoetic (imitative, 
pp. 160, 91). He called a cow m, a bell tin-tin (Holden's 
boy called a church-bell ling-dong-mang [communicated 
in correspondence]), a locomotive tsJiu, tshu, the noise 
made by throwing objects into the water doom, and he ex- 
tended this word to mean throw, strike, fall, spill, without 
reference to the sound). But the point of departure here, 
also, was the sound. In consideration of the fact that a 
sound formed in imitation of it, that is, a repetition of the 
tympanic vibrations by means of the vibrations of the 
vocal cords, is employed as a word for a phenomenon asso- 
ciated with the sound — that this is done by means of the 
faculty of generalization belonging to children that are 
intelligent but as yet without speech — it is perfectly allow- 
able, notwithstanding the scruples and objections of even 
a Max Miiller, to look for the origin of language in the 
imitation of sounds and the repetition of our own inborn 
vocal sounds, and so in an imitation. For the power of 
forming concepts must have manifested itself in the primi- 
tive man, as is actually the case in the infant, by move- 
ments of many sorts before articulate language existed. 
The question is, not whether the roots of language origi- 
nated onomatopoetically or interjectionally, but simply 
whether they originated through imitation or not. For 
interjections, all of them, could in no way come to be 
joined together so as to be means of mutual understand- 



252 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ing, i. e., words, unless one person imitated those of an- 
other. Now if the alalic child be tested as to whether 
he forms new words in any other way than by imitation 
and transformation of what he imitates, i. e., whether he 
forms them solely of his own ability, be it by the combi- 
nation of impulsive sounds of his own or of sounds acci- 
dentally arising in loud expiration, we find no sure case of 
it. Sound combinations, syllables — and those not in the 
least imitated — there are in abundance, but that even a 
single one is, without the intervention of the persons about 
the child, constantly associated with one and the same 
idea (before other ideas have received their verbal designa- 
tion — likewise by means of the members of the family — 
and have been made intelligible to the child), can not be 
shown to be probable. My observations concerning the 
word atta (p. 122 et al.) would tend in that direction, were 
it not that the atta, uttered in the beginning without 
meaning, had first got the meaning of " away," through 
the fact that atta was once said by somebody at going 
away. 

So long as proof is wanting, we can not believe that 
each individual child discovers anew the fundamental fact 
of the expression of ideas by movements of the tongue ; 
but we have to admit that he has inherited the faculty for 
such expression, and simply manifests it when he finds 
occasion for imitations. 

The first person that has attempted to fix the number 
of all the words used by the child, independently, before 
the beginning of the third year of life (and these only), is 
an astronomer, E. S. Holden, director of the Observatory 
of the University at Madison, Wisconsin. His results in 
the case of three children have been recently published 
(in the " Transactions of the American Philological Asso- 
ciation," 1887, pp. 58-68). 



APPENDIX A. 253 

Holden found, by help of Webster's " Unabridged Dic- 
tionary," his own vocabulary to consist of 33,456 words, 
with a probable error of one per cent. Allowing a prob- 
able error of two per cent, his vocabulary would be com- 
prised between the limits of 34,125 words and 32,787 
words. A vocabulary of 25,000 words and over is, accord- 
ing to the researches of himself and his friends, by no 
means an unusual one for grown persons of average intel- 
ligence and education. . 

Holden now determined in the most careful manner 
the words actually used by two children during the twenty- 
fourth month of their lives. A friend in England ascer- 
tained the same for a third child. All doubtful words 
were rigidly excluded. For example, words from nursery 
rhymes were excluded, unless they were independently 
and separately used in the same way with words of daily 
and common use. In the first two cases the words so ex- 
cluded are above 500 in number. Again, the names of 
objects represented in pictures were not included unless 
they were often spontaneously used by the children. The 
lists of words are presented in the order of their initial 
letters, because the ease or difficulty of pronouncing a 
word, the author is convinced, largely determines its early 
or late adoption. In this I can not fully agree with him, 
on the ground of my own experience (particularly since I 
have myself been teaching my child English, in his fourth 
year; he learns the language easily). It is not correct 
that the pronunciation rather than the meaning makes 
the learning of a word difficult. Thus, in all three of 
Holden's cases, the words that have the least easy initial (s) 
predominate ; the child, however, avoided them and substi- 
tuted easy ones. Holden makes no mention of this ; and in 
his list of all the words used he puts together, strangely, 
under one and the same letter, without regard to their 



254 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

sound- (phonic) value, vocables that begin with entirely 
different sounds. Thus, e. g., under c are found corner 
(k), chair (tsch), cellar (s) ; under k, actually knee (n) 
and keep (k), and, under s, words that begin with the same 
s-sound as in cellar, e. g., soap, and also words beginning 
with the sch-souii&, sugar, and with st, siv, sm, and many 
others. As the words of the three children are grouped, 
not according to the sounds with which they begin, but 
according to their initial letters, into twenty-six classes, the 
author's conclusions can not be admitted. The words 
must first all be arranged according to their initial sounds. 
When this task is accomplished, which brings no and 
1cnow, e. g., into one class, ivrap and rag into a second — 
whereas they were put in four different classes — then we 
find by no means the same order of succession that Holden 
gives. The author wrote to me, however, in 1882, that 
his oldest child understood at least 1,000 words more than 
those enumerated here, i. e., than those published by him, 
and that with both children facility of pronunciation had 
more influence in regard to the use of words than did 
the ease with which the words could be understood ; this, 
however, does not plainly follow from the printed state- 
ments before me, as he admits. When the first-born child 
was captivated by a new word, she was accustomed to 
practice it by herself, alone, and then to come and em- 
ploy it with a certain pride. The second child did so, too, 
only in a less striking manner. The boy, on the contrary, 
who was four years old in December, 1881, and who had 
no ear for music and less pride than his sisters, did not do 
as they did. 

Further, the statements of the number of all the nouns, 
adjectives, verbs, and adverbs used by a child of two years 
are of interest, although they present several errors : e. g., 
supper makes its appearance twice in the case of the same 



APPENDIX A. 



255 



child under s, and enough figures as an adjective. For 
the three girls, in their twenty-fourth month, the results 
were : 



Parts of Speech. 


First child. 


Second child. 


Third child. 


Nouns 


285 

107 

34 

29 

28 


230 
90 
37 
17 
25 


113 


Verbs , 


30 


Adjectives 


13 


Adverbs 


6 


Other parts of speech .... 


11 


Total 


483 


399 


173 







A fourth child, brother of the first and second, made 
use (according to the lists kindly communicated to me by 
the author), in his twenty-fourth month, of 227 nouns — 
some proper names among them — 105 verbs, 22 adjectives, 
10 adverbs, and 33 words of the remaining classes (all 
these figures being taken from the notes of the child's 
mother). 

From these four vocabularies of the twenty-fourth 
month it plainly results that the stock of words and the 
kinds of words depend primarily on the words most used 
in the neighborhood of the child, and the objects most 
frequently perceived ; they can not, therefore, be alike in 
different children. The daughters of the astronomer, be- 
fore their third year, name correctly a portrait of Galileo, 
and one of Struve. A local " tone," or peculiarity of this 
sort, attaches to every individual child, a general one to 
the children of a race. I may add that the third child 
(in England) seems to have been less accurately observed 
than the others (in Madison, Wisconsin). Great patience 
and attention are required to observe and note down every 
word used by a child in a month. 

Without mentioning the name of Holden, but refer- 



256 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ring to his investigations, which, in spite of the defects 
mentioned, are of the very highest merit, M. W. Humph- 
reys, Professor of Greek in Vanderbilt University, Nash- 
ville, has published a similar treatise, based on observa- 
tions of his own (" A Contribution to Infantile Linguistic," 
in the " Transactions of the American Philological Asso- 
ciation," 1880, xi, pp. 6-17). He collected, with the help 
of a dictionary, all the words that a little girl of just two 
years " had full command of," whether correctly pro- 
nounced or not, and whether they appeared exactly in the 
twenty-fourth month or earlier. He simply required to 
be convinced that every one of the words was understood 
and had been spontaneously used, and could still be used. 
He did not include proper names, or words (amounting 
to hundreds) from nursery-rhymes, or numerals, or names 
of the days of the week, because he was not sure that 
-fche child had a definite idea associated with them. The 
vocabulary thus numbered 1,121 words : 592 nouns, 283 
verbs, 114 adjectives, 56 adverbs, 35 pronouns, 28 preposi- 
tions, 5 conjunctions, and 8 interjections. In this table 
irregular verb- and noun-forms are not counted as sepa- 
rate words, except in the case of defective verbs, as am y 
was, been. The author presents the 1,121 words according 
to their classification as parts of speech, and according to 
initial letters, not according to initial sounds, although he 
himself declares this an erroneous proceeding, as I did in 
discussing Holden's paper. The only reason for it was 
convenience. 

In the adoption of a word by the child, difficulty of 
utterance had some influence in the first year ; when the 
little girl was two years old, this had ceased to have any 
effect whatever. She had by that time adopted certain 
substitutes for letters that she could not pronounce, and 
words containing these letters were employed by her as 



APPENDIX A. 257 

freely as if the substitutes had been the correct sounds. 
In regard to the meaning, and the frequency of use de- 
pendent upon it, it is to be observed that the simplest 
ideas are most frequently expressed. When two words are 
synonymous, one of them will be used exclusively by a 
child, because of the rarer employment of the other by- 
persons speaking in the child's presence. Here, too, the 
local " tone " that has been mentioned made itself felt ; 
thus, the little girl used the word " crinoid " every day, 
to designate sections of fossil crinoid stems which abounded 
in neighboring gravel walks. 

As to parts of speech, nouns were most readily seized ; 
then, in order, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns. Prepo- 
sitions and conjunctions the child began to employ early, 
but acquired them slowly. Natural interjections — tuali, 
for instance — she used to some extent from the beginning ; 
conventional ones came rather late. 

The following observations by Humphreys are very 
remarkable, and are, in part, up to this time unique : 

When about four months old the child began a curious 
and amusing mimicry of conversation, in which she so 
closely imitated the ordinary cadences that persons in an 
adjacent room would mistake it for actual conversation. 
The articulation, however, was indistinct, and the vowel- 
sounds obscure, and no attempt at separate words, whether 
real or imaginary, was made until she was six months old, 
when she articulated most syllables distinctly, without any 
apparent effort. 

When she was eight months old it was discovered that 
she knew by name every person in the house, as well as 
most of the objects in her room, and the parts of the body, 
especially of the face. She also understood simple sen- 
tences, such as, " Where is the fire ? " " Where is the baby 
in the glass ? " to which she would reply by pointing. In 



258 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

the following months she named many things correctly, 
thus using words as words in the proper sense. The 
pronunciation of some final consonants was indistinct, but 
all initial consonants were distinctly pronounced, except 
th, t, U, n, I These the child learned in the eleventh 
month. At this period she could imitate with accuracy 
any sound given her, and had a special preference for ng 
(ngang, ngeng), beginning a mimicry of language again, 
this time using real or imaginary words, without reference 
to signification. But an obscurity of vowel-sounds had 
begun again. After the first year her facility of utterance 
seemed to have been lost, so that she watched the mouths 
of others closely when they were talking, and labored pain- 
fully after the sounds. Finally, she dropped her mimicry 
of language, and, at first very slowly, acquired words with 
the ordinary infant pronunciation, showing a preference 
for labials (p, b, m) and Unguals (t, d, n, not I). Present- 
ly she substituted easy sounds for difficult ones. In the 
period from eighteen months to two years of age, the fol- 
lowing defects of articulation appeared regularly : v was 
pronounced like b, th (this) like d, th (thin) like t, z like 
d, s like t, r like w, j like d, ch like t, sh like t ; further : 

Initial. Final. 

/ like to, f like p, 

I not at all, I correctly, 

g like d, g correctly, 

h like t, h correctly, 

and in general correctly, m, J, p, n, d, t, h, ng, w. On the 
other hand, the initial sounds lit, br, pi, pr, fl, fr, dr, tr, 
thr, sp, st, became b, b, p, p, w, iv, d, t, t, p, t ; and the ini- 
tial sounds sh, sw, sm, sn, si, gl, gr, hw, hi, hr, hw, became 
t, w, m, n, t (for s), d, iv, id, t, w, hw (h weak). The let- 
ter y was not pronounced at all, at first. 

From this table, as Humphreys rightly observes, may 



APPENDIX A. 259 

be drawn the following conclusions in regard to the initial 
sounds of words : 

"When a letter which could be pronounced correctly 
preceded another, the first was retained, but, if both were 
represented by substitutes, the second was retained. If, 
however, the second was one which the child made silent, 
then she pronounced the first. Thus, tr = t, kr = w (for 
r), hl—t (for &, I being one of her silent letters). With 
these results should be compared those presented in regard 
to German children, in the paper of Fritz Schultze (p. 239 
above) (which likewise are not of universal application). 

The accent was for the most part placed on the last 
syllable. Only one case of the invention of a new word 
could be established. When the child was about eighteen 
months old, a fly flew all about her plate when she was 
eating, and she exclaimed, " The old fly went wiggely- 
waggely." But at this time the child had already learned 
to speak; she knew, therefore, that perceptions are ex- 
pressed by words. Notwithstanding, the original inven- 
tion remains remarkable, unless there may be found in it 
a reminiscence of some expression out of nursery-talk (cf., 
p. 238). Until the eighteenth month, " no " signified both 
" yes " and " no." 

At the end of two years subordinate propositions were 
correctly employed. This was the case also with a Ger- 
man girl in Jena, who, for instance, said, "The ball 
which Puck has" (P. Fiirbringer). In the case of my 
boy such sentences did not make their appearance till 
much later. 

I had hoped to find trustworthy observations in several 
other works besides those mentioned. Their titles led one 
to expect statements concerning the acquirement of speech 
by little children ; thus, " Das Kind, Tagebuch eines 
Vaters" ("The Child, A Father's Diary "), by II. Sem- 



260 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

mig (second edition, Leipsic, 1876), and the book of B. 
Perez, already named (p. 239). But inasmuch as for the 
former of these writers the first cry of the newly-born is a 
" triumphal song of everlasting life," and for the second 
author "the glance" is associated with "the magnetic 
effluvia of the will," I must leave both of these works out 
of consideration. The second contains many statements 
concerning the doings and sayings of little children in 
France ; but these can not easily be turned to account. 

The same author has issued a new edition, in abridged 
form, of the "Memoirs," written, according to him, by 
Dietrich Tiedemann, of a son of Tiedemann two years of 
age (the biologist, Friedrich Tiedemann, born in 1781). 
(Tliierri Tiedemann et la science cle V enfant. Mes deux 
chats. Fragment de psycliologie comparee par Bernard 
Perez. Paris, 1881, pp. 7-38 ; Tiedemann, 39-78. " The 
First Six Weeks of Two Cats.") But it is merely on ac- 
count of its historical interest that the book is mentioned 
here, as the scanty (and by no means objective) notes of 
the diary were made a hundred years ago. The treatises 
of Pollock and Egger, mentioned in the periodical " Mind " 
(London, July, 1881, No. 23), I am not acquainted with, 
and the same is true of the work of Schwarz (mentioned 
above, p. 224). 

Very good general statements concerning the child's 
acquisition of speech are to be found in Degerando 
(" L'education des sourds-muets de naissance," 1 vol., Paris, 
1827, pp. 32-57). He rightly maintains that the child 
learns to speak through his own observation, without at- 
tention from other persons, far more than through sys- 
tematic instruction ; the looks and gestures of the mem- 
bers of the family when talking with one another are es- 
pecially observed by the child, who avails himself of them 
in divining the meaning of the words he hears. This 



APPENDIX A. 261 

divining, or guessing, plays in fact a chief part in the 
learning of speech, as I have several times remarked. 

New comprehensive diaries concerning the actions of 
children in the first years of life are urgently to be de- 
sired. They should contain nothing but well-established 
facts, no hypotheses, and no repetitions of the statements 
of others. 

Among the very friendly notes that have been sent to 
me, the following particularly conform to the above re- 
quirements. They were most kindly placed at my disposal 
by the Baroness von Taube, of Esthonia, daughter of the 
very widely and honorably known Count Keyserling. 
They relate to her first-born child, and come all of them 
from the mother herself : 

In the first five months I heard from my son, when he cried, all 
the vowels. The sound a was the first and most frequent. Of the 
consonants, on the other hand, 1 heard only g, which appeared after 
seven weeks. When the child was fretful he often cried gege ; when 
in good humor he often repeated the syllables agu, ago, clou, ogo, 
eia ; then I came in, ul. 

The same sounds in the case of my daughter ; but from her I 
heard, up to her tenth month, in spite of all my observation, no 
other consonants than g, b, w, rarely I, and finally m-sounds. With 
my son at the beginning of the seventh month an It-sound appeared 
— grr, grrr, plainly associated with d in dirr dirr. These sounds 
were decidedly sounds of discomfort, which expressed dissatisfaction, 
violent excitement, sleepiness ; and they are made even now by the 
boy at four years of age when, e. g., he is in pain. In the ninth 
month dada and b, bab-a, bdb-d are added. Ago also is often said, 
and o still more often. This o is already a kind of conscious at- 
tempt at speaking, for he uses it when he sees anything new, e. g., 
the dog Caro, which he observes with eager attention, as he does 
the cat, uttering aloud meanwhile o, 6. 

If any one is called, the child calls in a very loud voice, 0, oe ! 

First imitation. (Gestures have been imitated since the eighth 

month, and the making of grimaces in the child's presence had to be 

strictly forbidden.) Understanding for what is said is also present, 

20 



262 TIDE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

for when one calls " Caro, Caro," in his hearing, he looks about him 
as if he were looking for the dog. In the tenth month he often re- 
peats Pap-ba, but it has no significance. 

If " Backe backe kuchen " (" bake cakes," corresponding to our 
" pat-a-cake "•) is said to him, he immediately pats his hands as if 
preparing bread for baking. In the eleventh month Pap-ba is 
dropped. He now says often dddddddd, and, when he is dull or ex- 
cited (erregt) or sleepy, drin, drin. These r-sounds do not occur with 
my daughter ; but since her tenth month she uses m-sounds, mamma 
when she is sleepy or dull. The boy now stretches out his hand 
and beckons when he sees any one at a distance. At sight of any- 
thing new, he no longer says 6, but dda (twelfth month). He likes 
to imitate gestures with his arms and mouth; he observes atten- 
tively the movements of the lips of one who is speaking, sometimes 
touching at the same time the mouth of the speaker with his finger. 

At ten months the first teeth came. In the eleventh month the 
child was for the first time taken out into the open air. Now the 
^-sounds again become prominent — aga, ga, gugag. The child be- 
gins to creep, but often falls, and while making his toilsome efforts 
keeps crying out in a very comical manner, dch, dch, dch I 

At eleven and a half months a great advance. The child is now 
much out of doors, and enjoys seeing horses, cows, hens, and ducks. 
When he sees the hens he says gog, gog, and even utters some croak- 
ing sounds. He can also imitate at once the sound prrr when it is 
pronounced to him. If papa is pronounced for him (he has lost 
this word), he responds regularly wawa or wawawa. I have only 
once heard wauwau from him. If he hears anybody cough, he im- 
mediately gives a little imitative cough in fun (vol. i, p. 288), and 
this sounds very comical. 

He makes much use of od, ado, and ad, and this also when he 
sees pictures. When the boy had reached the age of a year, he was 
weaned ; from that time his mental development was very rapid. If 
any one sings to him gi ga gack, he responds invariably gack. 

He begins to adapt sounds to objects : imitation of sound is the 
chief basis of this adaptation. He calls the ducks with gdk, gdh, 
and imitates the cock, after a fashion, names the dog aua (this he 
got from his nurse), not only when he sees the animal, but also when 
he hears him bark. E. g., the child is playing busily with paste- 
board boxes ; the dog begins to bark outside of the house ; the child 
listens and says aua. I roll his little carriage back and forth ; he 



APPENDIX A. 263 

immediately says brrr, pointing to it with his hand ; he wants to 
ride, and I have to put him in (he had heard hurra, as a name for 
riding, from his nurse). When he sees a horse, he says prr (this has 
likewise been said for him). 

I remark here that the notion that the child thinks out its own 
language — a notion I have often met with, held by people not 
well informed in regard to this matter — rests on defective observa- 
tion. The child has part of his language given to him by others ; 
part is the result of his own sound-imitations — of animals, e. g. — and 
part rests on mutilations of our language. At the beginning of the 
thirteenth month he suddenly names all objects and pictures, for 
some days, dodo, toto, which takes the place of his former o ; then 
he calls them niana, which he heard frequently, as it means " nurse " 
in Russian. Everything now is called niana : dirr continues to be 
the sign of extreme discomfort. 

Papba is no more said, ever ; on the other hand, mamma ap- 
pears for the first time, but without any significance, still less with 
any application to the mother. 

The word niana becomes now the expression of desire, whether 
of his food or of going to somebody or somewhere. Sometimes, also, 
under the same circumstances, he cries mamma and mamma ; the 
dog is now decidedly called aua, the horse prr. 

14th Month. — He now names also single objects in his picture- 
book : the dog, aua, the cats, tith (pronounced as in English), kiss 
kiss having been said for him ; horses, prr, all birds, gock or gack. 
In the house of a neighbor he observes at once the picture, although 
it hangs high up on the wall, of the emperor driving in a sleigh, 
and cries prrr. Animals that he does not know he calls, whether in 
the book or the real animals, aua or ua, e. g. cows. 

His nurse, to whom he is much attached, he now calls decidedly 
niania, although he continues to use this word in another sense 
also. If she is absent for some time, he calls, longingly, niania, 
niania. He sometimes calls me mamma ; but not quite surely yet. 
He babbles a good deal to himself ; says over all his words, and 
makes variations in his repertory, e.g., niana, Tcanna, danna; re- 
peats syllables and words, producing also quite strange and unusual 
sounds, and accumulations of consonants, like mba, mpta. As soon 
as he wakes in the morning he takes up these meaningless language- 
exercises, and I hear him then going on in an endless babble. 

When he does not want a thing, he shakes his head as a sign of 



264 TIIE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

refusal ; this no one has taught him. Nodding the head as a sign of 
assent or affirmation he is not yet acquainted with, and learns it 
much later. 

The nurse speaks with me of Caro ; the child attends and says 
aua ; he knows what we were talking about. If his grandmother 
says, " Give the little hand," he at once stretches it out toward her. 
He understands what is said, and begins consciously to repeat it. 
His efforts to pronounce the word Grossmama (grandmamma) are 
comical ; in spite of all his pains, he can not get beyond the gr ; says 
Gr-mama, and finally Goo-mama, and makes this utterance every 
time he sees his grandmother. At this time he learns also from his 
nurse the word koppa as a name for horse, instead of prr, hurra, 
which, from this time forth, denotes only going in a carriage. 
Koppa is probably a formation from " hoppa koppati," an imitation 
of the sound of the hoofs. 

/~ At the end of the fourteenth month, his stock of words is much 
enlarged. The child plays much in the open air, sees much, and 
advances in his development ; words and sounds are more and more 
suited to conceptions. He wakes in the night and says appa, which 
means "Give me some drink." The ball he calls Ball; flower, 
Bume (for Blume) ; cat, katz and kotz (Katze) — what kalla, kanna, 
kotta signify we do not know. He imitates the barking of the dog 
with auauauau. He says teine for Steine (stones); calls Braten 
(roast meat) pdati and pda, and Brod (bread) the same. If he hits 
against anything in creeping, he immediately says ha (it hurts). If 
he comes near a dangerous object, and some one says to him, ha, he 
is on his guard at once. 

A decided step in advance, at the end of the fourteenth month, 
is his calling me Mama. At sight of me he often cries out, in a 
loud voice and in a coaxing tone, ei-mamma / just as he calls the 
nurse ei-niana. His father he now calls Papa, too, but not until 
now, although this sound, papba, made its appearance in the tenth 
month, after which time it was completely forgotten. His grand- 
mother, as he can not get beyond the gr, is now called simply grrru ; 
not until later, Go-mamma. 

15th Month. — He now says Guten Tag (good-day), but not always 
at the right time ; also Guitag. He likes to see pictures, and calls 
picture-books ga or gock, probably because a good many birds are 
represented in them. He likes to have stories told to him, and to 
have pictures explained or rather named. 



APPENDIX A. 265 

" Hinauf " (up) he calls uppa, e. g., when he is to be lifted into 
his chair. For " unten, hinab " (below, down), he says patz. Not 
long ago he repeated unweariedly pica, pta (pp. 139, 144), moa, mbwa. 

At this period he begins to raise himself erect, holding on by 
chairs and such things. 

Of horses he is passionately fond ; but he begins to use the word 
koppa, as the Chinese do their words, in various meanings. He calls 
my large gold hair-pins koppa. Perhaps in his imagination they rep- 
resent horses, as do many other objects also with which he plays. 
Berries he now calls mamma. He has a sharp eye for insects, and 
calls them all putika, from the Esthonian puttuhas (beetle), which 
he has got from the maid. 

All large birds in the picture-book he now calls papa, the word 
being probably derived from Papagei (parrot), which he also pro- 
nounces papagoi. The smaller birds are called gog and gack. 

His image in the glass he calls titta (Esthonian designation for 
child, doll). Does he recognize himself in it (p. 196, et seq.) 1 

Once he heard me in the garden calling some one in a loud voice. 
He immediately imitated me, and afterward when he was asked 
" What does mamma do ? " he understood the question at once, put 
out his lips, and made the same sound. He is very uneasy in strange 
surroundings, in strange places, or among strangers. 

My bracelet, too, he now calls kopita. Mann is a new word. 
O-patz means "playing on the piano," as well as "below, down 
there." When the piano is played he sings in a hoarse voice, with 
lips protruded, as well as he can, but does not get the tune. He 
likes to dance, and always dances in time. 

Nocho (noch, yet) is a new word, which he uses much in place of 
mehr (more), e. g., when he wants more food. 

He often plays with apples, which for this reason, and very likely 
because they are round, he calls Ball, as he does his rubber ball. 
Yesterday he had baked apples, mashed, with milk. He recognized 
the apple at once in this altered form, and said as he ate, Ball ! At 
this time he was not yet sixteen months old. 

r 16th Month. — He is often heard to beg, or rather order, Mamma 
epatz (play the piano). If I do not at once obey, he moves his little 
hands like a piano-player and begs tatata, tatata, imitating the mu- 
sic. He likes also to hear songs sung, and can already tell some of 
them, as GigagacJc, Tcucha tralla. He joins in singing the last of 
these. 



266 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

17th Month. — He speaks his own name correctly, and when asked 
" Where is Adolph % " he points to his breast. As he is always ad- 
dressed in the third person, i. e., by his name, he does not know any 
personal pronouns. 

The syllable ei he often changes to al ; e. g., he says Papagal in- 
stead of " Papagei." 

He had some grapes given to him for the first time, and he at 
once called them mammut (berries). Being asked, "How do you 
like them f " he pressed his hand on his heart in an ecstasy of de- 
light that was comical, crying ach ! ach ! 

18th Month. — He comprehends and answers questions ; e. g., 
" Where are you going % " Zu Tuhl (to the chair). " What is that 1 
Bett tuddu, i. e., a bed for sleeping. "Who gave you this 1 ?" Mam- 
ma, Pappa. 

He can now say almost any word that is said to him, often muti- 
lating it ; but, if pains be taken to repeat it for him, he pronounces 
it correctly. He often tacks on the syllable ga, as if in endearment, 
mammaga, pappaga, nianiaga. The forming of sentences is also 
beginning, for he joins two words together, e. g., Mamma Jcommt 
(comes), Papa gut (good), Ferd (for Pferd) halt (horse stop). He says 
wiebacka for Zwieback (biscuit), Brati for Braten (roast meat), Gooss- 
mama for Grossmama (grandmamma). He pronounces correctly 
" Onkel Kuno, Suppe, Fuchs, Rabe, Kameel." 

When others are conversing in his presence, he often says to him- 
self the words he hears, especially the last words in the sentence. 
The word " Nein " (no) he uses as a sign of refusal ; e. g., " Will you 
have some roast meat?" Nein. J a (yes), on the other hand, he 
does not use, but he answers in the affirmative by repeating fre- 
quently with vehemence what he wants, e. g., " Do you want some 
roast % " Brati, Brati (i. e., I do want roast). 

He gives names to his puppets. He calls them Grandmamma, 
Grandpapa, Uncle Kuno, Uncle Grunberg, gardener, cook, etc. The 
puppets are from his Noah's ark. 

Now appear his first attempts at drawing. He draws, as he im- 
agines, all kinds of animals : ducks, camels, tigers. He lately made 
marks, calling out Torch und noch ein Torch (a stork and another 
stork). (Cf. pp. 172, 247.) 

- The book of birds is his greatest delight. I have to imitate the 
notes of birds, and he does it after me, showing memory in it. He 
knows at once stork, woodpecker, pigeon, duck, pelican, siskin, and 



APPENDIX A. 267 

swallow. The little verses I sing at the same time amuse him, e. g., 
"Zeislein, Zeislein, wo ist dein Hauslein?" (Little siskin, where is 
your little house %) ; and he retains them when he hears them often. 
Russian words also are repeated by him. 

For the first time I observe the attempt to communicate to others 
some experience of his own. He had been looking at the picture- 
book with me, and when he went to the nurse he told her, Mamma, 
JBilder, Papagei (Mamma, pictures, parrot). 

- 19th Month, — From the time he was a year and a half old he has 
walked alone. 

^ He speaks whole sentences, but without connectives, e. g., Niana 
JBraten holen (nurse bring roast) ; Caro draussen wauwau (Caro out- 
side, bow-wow) ; Mamma tuddut (sleeps, inflected correctly) ; Decke 
um (cover over) ; Papa koppa Stadt (Papa driven to city) ; Mamma 
sitzt tuhl (Mamma sits chair) ; Adolph bei Mama bleiben (Adolph 
stay with mamma) ; Noch tanzen (more dance) ; Pappa Fuchs 
machen (Papa make fox). 

Certain words make him nervous. He does not like the refrain 
of the children's song of the goat. If I say " Darum, darum, meek, 
meek, meek," he looks at me indignantly and runs off. Sometimes 
he lays his hand on my mouth or screams loudly for the nurse. He 
gives up any play he is engaged in as soon as I say " darum, darum." 
Pax vobiscum has the same effect. 

The songs amuse him chiefly on account of the words, particu- 
larly through the imitations of the sounds of animals. 

He knows the songs and asks of his own accord for Kucku Esaal, 
Kater putz, Kucku tralla. but commonly hears only the first stanza, 
and then wants a different song. Lately, however, he listened very 
earnestly to the three stanzas of " Mopschen," and when I asked 
" What now? " he answered Noch Mops (more Mops). Playing with 
his puppets, he hummed to himself, tu, tu, errsen, tu tu errsen. I 
guessed that it was "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen," which he had 
on the previous day wanted to hear often and had tried to repeat. 

20th Month. — Now for the first time ja is used for affirmation, 
chiefly in the form ja wohl (yes, indeed, certainly), which he retains. 
" Do you want this f " J a wohl. 

Being asked "Whose feet are these f" he answers correctly, 
Mine; but no personal pronouns appear yet. He often retains a 
new and difficult word that he has heard only once, e. g., " Choco- 
lade." 



268 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

To my question, after his grandfather had gone away, " Where 
is Grandpapa now % " he answers sorrowfully, verloren (lost). (Cf . p. 
145.) 

In his plays he imitates the doings and sayings of adults, puts a 
kerchief about his head and says, Adolpli go stable, give oats, 

Not long ago, as he said good-night to us, he went also to his 
image in the glass and kissed it repeatedly, saying, Adolph, good- 
night ! 

24th Month. — He knows a good many flowers, their names and 
colors ; calls pansies " the dark flowers." 

He also caught the air and rhythm of certain songs, e. g. 5 Kommt 
a Vogel angeflogen, .Du, du, liegst mir im Rerzen, machst mir viel 
Serzen, and used to sing to himself continually when he was on a 
walk. Now that he is four years old, on the contrary, he hardly ever 
sings. 

25th Month. — Beetles have a great interest for him. He brings a 
dead beetle into the parlor, and cries, " Run now ! " His astonish- 
ment is great that the creature does not run. 

If he sees something disagreeable (e. g.. he saw the other day an 
organ-grinder with a monkey), he covers his face with his hands 
weeping aloud and crying, Monkey go away. So, too, when he sees 
strangers. 

The Latin names of flowers and insects are easily retained by 
him. They are not taught him, he simply hears them daily. 

26th and 27th Months. — Of his childish language he has retained 
only the term mammut, for berries. Milk, which he used to call 
mima, is now called milch (cf., pp. 140, 157). 

The child's use of the personal pronoun is strange. During my 
absence an aunt of his took my place, and she addressed him for the 
first time with the word " Du " (thou), and spoke of herself as " I," 
whereas I always called myself " Mama." The consequence was that 
the boy for a long time used " thou " as the first person, " 1 " as the 
second person, with logical consistency. He hands me bread, say- 
ing, I am hungry, or, when I am to go with him, i" come too. 
Referring to himself, he says, You want flowers ; you ivill play with 
Niania. All other persons are addressed with " I " instead of " you." 

He tells his uncle, There's an awfully pretty geritian in the yard % 
He gets the nurse occasionally to repeat the Latin names, because 
they are difficult for her, and his correction of her is very comical. 

28th Month, — He speaks long sentences. Papa, come drink coffee, 



APPENDIX A. 269 

phase do. Papa, I drive (for " you drive ") to town, to Reval, and 
bring some parrots (Bellensittiche). 

He often changes the form of words for fun, e. g., guten Porgen 
(for guten Morgen). On going out, he says, with a knowing air, 
" Splendid weather, the sun shines so warm." He alters songs also, 
putting in different expressions : e. g., instead of Lieber Vogel fliege 
weiter, nimm a Kuss und a (truss, Adolph sings, Lieber Vogel fliege 
weiter in die Wolken hinein (dear bird, fly farther, into the clouds, 
instead of take a kiss and a greeting). It is a proof of logical think- 
ing that he asks, at sight of the moon, The moon is in the sky, has 
it wings ? 

I had been sick ; when I was better and was caressing him again, 
he said, Mama is well, the dear Jesus has made mama well with 
sealing-wax. "With sealing-wax % " I asked, in astonishment. Yes, 
from the writing-desk. He had often seen his toys, when they had 
been broken, " made well," as he called it, by being stuck together 
with sealing-wax. 

He now asks, Where is the dear Jesus ? " In heaven." Can he 
fly then ; has he wings ? 

Religious conceptions are difficult to impart to him, even at a 
much later period : e. g., heaven is too cold for him, his nose would 
freeze up there, etc. 

He now asks questions a good deal in general, especially What is 
that called 9 e. g., What are chestnuts called f " Horse-chestnuts." 
What are these pears called ? " Bergamots." He jests : Nein, Ber- 
gapots, or, What kind of mots are those ? He will not eat an apple 
until he has learned what the name of it is. 

He would often keep asking, in wanton sport, What are books 
called 9 or ducks ? or soup ? 

He uses the words " to-day, to-morrow," and the names of the 
days of the week, but without understanding their meaning. 

Instead of saying " zu Mittag gehen " (go to noon-meal), he says, 
logically, " zu Nachmittag gehen " (go to afternoon-meal). 

The child does not know what is true, what is actual. I never 
can depend on his statements, except, as it appears, when he tells 
w T hat he has had to eat. If riding is spoken of, e. g., he has a vivid 
picture of riding in his mind. To-day, when I asked him " Did you 
see papa ride!" he answered, Yes, indeed, papa rode away of into 
the woods. Yet his father had not gone to ride at all. 

fin the same way he often denies what he has seen and done. He 



270 TEE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

comes out of his father's room and I ask, " "Well, have you said good- 
night to papa? " No. His father told me afterward that the child 
had done it. 

In the park we see some crested titmice, and I tell the nurse that, 
in the previous autumn, I saw for the first time Finnish parrots or 
cross-bills here, but that I have not seen any since. "When the child's 
father asked later, " Well, Adolph, what did you see in the park % " 
Crested titmice, with golden crests (he adds out of his own invention) 
and Finnish parrots. He mixes up what he has heard anct'seen with 
what he imagines. 

Truth has to be taught to a child. The less this is done, the 
easier it is to inoculate him with religious notions, i. e., of miracu- 
lous revelation ; otherwise one must be prepared for many questions 
that are hard to answer. 

29th month. — Sad stories affect him to tears, and he runs away. 

Names of animals and plants he remembers often more easily 
than I do, and informs me. He reasons logically. Lately, when he 
asked for some foolish thing, I said to him, " Sha'n't I bring the 
moon for you, too ? " No, said he, you can't do that, it is too high up 
in the clouds. 

30th to 33d months. — He now often calls himself " Adolph," and 
then speaks of himself in the third person. He frequently confounds 
" I " and " you," and does not so consistently use the first person for 
the second, and the reverse. The transition is very gradually taking 
place to the correct use of the personal pronoun. Instead of my 
mamma, he repeats often, when he is in an affectionate mood, your 
mamma, your mamma. 

Some new books are given to him. In the book of beetles there 
are shown to him the party-colored and the gray, so-called " sad," 
grave-digger (necrophorus). The latter now becomes prominent in 
his plays. " Why is he called the sad % " I asked the child yesterday. 
Ah ! because he has no children, he answered, sorrowfully. Prob- 
ably he has at some time overheard this sentence, which has no mean- 
ing for him, from a grown person. Adult persons' ways of speaking 
are thus employed without an understanding of them ; pure verbal 
memory. 

In the same way, he retains the names, in his new book, of but- 
terflies (few of them German) better than I do, however crabbed and 
difficult they may be. 

This (pure) memory for mere sounds or tones has become less 



APPENDIX A. 271 

strong in the now four-year-old boy, who has more to do with ideas 
and concepts, although his memory in other respects is good. 

In the thirty-seventh month he sang, quite correctly, airs he had 
heard, and he could sing some songs to the piano, if they were fre- 
quently repeated with him. His fancy for this soon passed away, 
and these exercises ceased. On the other hand, he tells stories a 
great deal and with pleasure. His pronunciation is distinct, the 
construction of the sentences is mostly correct, apart from errors 
acquired from his nurse. The confounding of the first and second 
persons, the " I " and " you," or rather his use of the one for the 
other, has ceased, and the child designates himself by I, others by 
thou and you. Men are ordinarily addressed by him with thou, as 
his father and uncle are ; women with you, as are even his mother 
and nurse. This continues for a long time. The boy of four years 
counts objects, with effort, up to six ; numbers remain for a long 
time merely empty words (pp. 165, 172). In the same way, he has, 
as yet, but small notion of the order of the days of the week, and 
mixes up the names of them. To-day, to-morrow, yesterday, have 
gradually become more intelligible to him. 

Notwithstanding the aphoristic character of these ex- 
tracts from a full and detailed diary of observations, I 
have thought they ought to be given, because they form a 
valuable supplement to my observations in the nineteenth 
chapter, and show particularly how far independent 
thought may be developed, even in the second and third 
years, while there is, as yet, small knowledge of language. 
The differences in mental development between this child 
and mine are no less worthy of notice than are the agree- 
ments. Among the latter is the fact, extremely impor- 
tant in a pedagogical point of view, that, the less we 
teach the child the simple truth from the beginning, so 
much the easier it is to inoculate him permanently with 
religious notions, i. e., of " miraculous revelation." Fairy 
tales, ghost-stories, and the like easily make the childish 
imagination, of itself very active, hypertrophic, and cloud 
the judgment concerning actual events. Morals and na- 



272 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

ture offer such an abundance of facts with which we may 
connect the teaching of language, that it is better to dis- 
pense with legends. iEsop's fables combine the moral and 
the natural in a manner unsurpassable. My child tells me 
one of these fables every morning. 



B. 

NOTES CONCEENING LACKING, DEFECTIVE, AND AEEESTED 
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIEST YEAES OF LIFE. 

The data we have concerning the behavior of chil- 
dren born, living, without head or without brain, and of 
microcephalous children, as well as of idiots and cretins 
more advanced in age, are of great interest, as helping us 
to a knowledge of the dependence of the first psychical 
processes upon the development of the brain, especially of 
the cerebral cortex. Unfortunately, these data are scanty 
and scattered. 

Very important, too, for psychogenesis, are reports 
concerning the physiological condition and activity of 
children whose mental development has seemed to be 
stopped for months, or to be made considerably slower, or 
to be unusually hastened. 

Scanty as are the notes I have met with on this mat- 
ter, after much search, yet I collect and present some of 
them, in the hope that they will incite to more abundant 
and more careful observation iu the future than has been 
made up to this time. 

A good many data concerning the behavior of cretin 
children are to be found in the very painstaking book, 
" Neue Untersuchungen iiber den Kretinismus oder die 
Entartung des Menschen in ihren verschiedenen Graden 



APPENDIX B. 273 

und Formen " ( a New Investigations concerning Cretin- 
ism, or Human Deterioration, in its Various Forms and 
Degrees "), by Maffei and Kosch (two vols, Erlangen, 1844). 
But, in order that these data should be of value, the ob- 
served anomalies and defects of the cerebral functions 
ought to be capable of being referred to careful morpho- 
logical investigations of the cretin brain. As the authors 
give no results of post-mortem examinations, I simply refer 
to their work here. 

I once had the opportunity myself of seeing a heini- 
cephalus, living, who was brought to the clinic of my 
respected colleague, Prof. B. Schultze, in Jena. The child 
was of the male sex, and was born on the 1st of July, 
1883, at noon, along with a perfectly normal twin sister. 
The parents are of sound condition. I saw the child for 
the first time on the 3d of July, at two o'clock. I found 
all the parts of the body, except the head, like those of 
ordinary children born at the right time. The head had 
on it a great red lump like a tumor, and came to an end 
directly over the eyes, going down abruptly behind ; but, 
even if the tumor were supposed to be covered with skin, 
there would by no means be the natural arched formation 
of the cranium of a newly-born child. The face, too, ab- 
solutely without forehead, was smaller in comparison than 
the rest of the body. I found now, in the case of this 
child, already two days old, a remarkably regular breath- 
ing, a very cool skin — in the forenoon a specific warmth 
of 32° C. had been found — and slight mobility. The eyes 
remained closed. Yfhen I opened them, without violence, 
the pupil was seen to be immobile. It did not react in the 
least upon the direct light of the sun on either side. The 
left eye did not move at all, the right made rare, convul- 
sive, lateral movements. The conjunctiva was very much 
reddened. The child did not react in the least to pricks 



274: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

of a dull needle tried on all parts of the body, and reacted 
only very feebly to pinches ; not at all to sound-stimuli, 
but regularly to stronger, prolonged cutaneous stimuli ; 
in particular, the child moved its arms after a slap on the 
back, just like normal new-born children, and uttered 
very harsh, feeble tones when its back was rubbed. When 
I put my finger in its mouth vigorous sucking movements 
began, which induced me to offer the bottle — this had not 
yet been done. Some cubic centimetres of milk were 
vigorously swallowed, and soon afterward the breast of a 
nurse was taken. While this was going on I could feel 
quite distinctly with my finger, under the chin, the move- 
ments of swallowing. It was easy to establish the further 
fact that my finger, which I laid in the hollow of the 
child's hand, was frequently clasped firmly by the little 
fingers, which had well-developed nails. Not unfrequent- 
ly, sometimes without previous contact, sometimes after it, 
the tip of the tongue, and even a larger part of the tongue, 
was thrust out between the lips, and once, when I held the 
child erect, he plainly gave a prolonged yawn. Finally, 
the fact seemed to me very noteworthy that, after being 
taken and held erect, sometimes also without any assign- 
able outward occasion, the child inclined its head forward 
and turned it vigorously both to the right and to the left. 
When the child had sucked lustily a few times, it opened 
both eyes about two millimetres wide, and went on with 
its nursing. An assistant physician saw the child 
sneeze. 

These observations upon a human child, two days old, 
unquestionably acephalous, i. e., absolutely without cere- 
brum, but as to the rest of its body not in the least abnor- 
mal, prove what I have already advanced (vol. i, p. 203), 
that the cerebrum takes no part at all in the first move- 
ments of the newly-born. In this respect the extremely 



APPENDIX B. 275 

rare case of an acephalous child, living for some days, sup- 
plies the place of an experiment of vivisection. Unfortu- 
nately, the child died so early that I could not carry on 
further observations and experiments. The report of the 
post-mortem examination will be published by itself. 

Every observer of young children knows the great vari- 
ety in the rapidity of their development, and will agree 
with me in general that a slow and steady development of 
the cerebral functions in the first four years, but especially 
in the first two years, justifies a more favorable prognosis 
than does a very hasty and unsteady development; but 
when during that period of time there occurs a complete 
and prolonged interruption of the mental development, 
then the danger is always great that the normal course 
will not be resumed. So much the more instructive, 
therefore, are the cases in which the children after such a 
standstill have come back to the normal condition. Four 
observations of this kind have been published by K. Dem- 
me ("19. Bericht iiber das Jenner'sche Kinderspital in 
Bern, 1882," S. 31 bis 52). These are of so great interest 
in their bearing on psychogenesis, and they confirm in so 
striking a manner some of the propositions laid down by 
me in this book, that I should like to print them here 
word for word, especially as the original does not ap- 
pear to have found a wide circulation; but that would 
make my book altogether too large. I confine myself, 
therefore, to this reference, with the request that further 
cases of partial or total interruption of mental develop- 
ment during the first year of life, with a later progress in 
it, may be collected and made public. 

It is only in rare cases that microcephalous children 
can be observed, while living, for any considerable length 
of time continuously. In this respect a case described by 
Aeby is particularly instructive. 



276 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

A microcephalous boy was born of healthy parents— 
he was their first child — about four weeks too soon. His 
whole body had something of stiffness and awkwardness. 
The legs were worse off in this respect than the arms ; 
they showed, as they continued to show up to the time of 
his death, a tendency to become crossed. The boy was never 
able to stand or walk. He made attempts to seize striking 
objects, white or party-colored, but never learned actually 
to hold anything. The play of feature was animated. 
The dark eyes, shining and rapidly moving, never lingered 
long upon one and the same object. The child was much 
inclined to bite, and always bit very sharply. Mentally 
there was pronounced imbecility. In spite of his four 
years the boy never got so far as to produce any articulate 
sounds whatever. Even simple words like "papa" and 
" mamma " were beyond his ability. His desire for any- 
thing was expressed in inarticulate and not specially ex- 
pressive tones. His sleep was short and light ; he often 
lay whole nights through with open eyes. He seldom 
shed tears ; his discomfort was manifested chiefly by shrill 
screaming. He died of pulmonary paralysis at the end of 
the fourth year. 

The autopsy showed that the frontal lobes were sur- 
prisingly small, and that there was a partial deficiency of 
the median longitudinal fissure. The fissure did not be- 
gin till beyond the crown of the head, in the region of the 
occiput. The anterior half of the cerebrum consequently 
lacked the division into lateral hemispheres. It had few 
convolutions also, and the smoothness of its surface was 
at once obvious. The corpus callosum and the fornix 
were undeveloped. " The gray cortical layer attained in 
general only about a third of the normal thickness, and 
was especially weakly represented in the frontal region." 
The cerebellum not being stunted, seemed, by the side of 
the greatly shrunken cerebrum, surprisingly large. 

In this case the microcephalus of four years behaves, 
as far as the development of will is concerned, like the 
normal boy of four months. The latter is, in fact, 
superior to him in seizing, while the former in no 
way manifests any advantage in a psychical point of 
view. 



APPENDIX B. 277 

Two cases of microcephaly have been described by 
Fletcher Beach (in the " Transactions of the International 
Medical Congress," London, 1881, iii, 615-626). 

E. R. was, in May, 1875, received into his institution 
at the age of eleven years. She had at the time of her 
birth a small head, and had at no time manifested much 
intelligence. She could not stand or walk, but was able 
to move her arms and legs. Her sight and hearing were 
normal. She was quiet and obedient, and sat most of the 
time in her chair. She paid no attention to her bodily 
needs. She could not speak and had to be fed with a 
spoon. After six months she became a little more intelli- 
gent, made an attempt to speak, and muttered something 
indistinctly. She would stretch out her hand when told 
to give it, and she recognized with a smile her nurse and 
the physician. Some four months later she would grind 
her teeth when in a pleasant mood, and would act as if she 
were shy when spoken to, holding her hand before her 
eyes. She was fond of her nurse. Thus there was ca- 
pacity of observation, there were attention, memory, affec- 
tion, and some power of voluntary movement. She died 
in January, 1876. Her brain weighed, two days after her 
death, seven ounces. It is minutely described by the au- 
thor — but after it had been preserved in alcohol for six 
years, and it then weighed only two ounces. The author 
found a number of convolutions not so far developed as in 
the foetus of six months, according to Gratiolet, and he is 
of opinion that the cerebellum was further developed after 
the cerebrum had ceased to grow, so that there was not an 
arrest of the development but an irregularity. The cere- 
bral hemispheres were asymmetrical, the frontal lobes, cor- 
responding to the psychical performances in the case, be- 
ing relatively pretty large, while the posterior portion of 
the third convolution on the left side, the island of Reil, 
and the operculum were very small, corresponding to the 
inability to learn to speak. The author connects the 
slight mobility with the smallness of the parietal and 
frontal ascending convolutions. 

The other case is that of a girl of six years (E. H.), 
w r ho came to the institution in January, 1879, and died in 
21 



278 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

July of the same year. She could walk about, and she 
had complete control of her limbs. She was cheerful, 
easy to be amused, and greatly attached to her nurse. She 
associated with other children, but could not speak a 
word. Her hearing was good, her habits bad. Although 
she could pick up objects and play with them, it did not 
occur to her to feed, herself. She could take notice and 
observe, and could remember certain persons. Her brain 
weighed, two days after death, 20|- ounces, and was, in 
many respects, as simple as that of an infant ; but, in re- 
gard to the convolutions, it was far superior to the brain 
of a monkey — was superior also to that of E. E. The 
ascending frontal and parietal convolutions were larger, 
corresponding to the greater mobility. The third frontal 
convolution and the island of Reil were small on both 
sides, corresponding to the alalia. The author is of opin- 
ion that the ganglionic cells in this brain lacked processes, 
so that the inter-central connections did not attain devel- 
opment. 

A more accurate description of two brains of micro- 
cephali is given by Julius Sander in the "Archiv fur 
Psychiatrie und Nerven-Krankheiten " (i, 299-307 ; Ber- 
lin, 1868), accompanied by good plates. One of these 
cases is that of which an account is given by Johannes 
M tiller (in the " Medicinische Zeitung des Vereins f tir 
Heilkunde in Preussen," 1836, Kr. 2 und 3). 

In the full and detailed treatises concerning micro- 
cephali by Karl Vogt (" Archiv fur Anthropologic," ii, 2, 
228) and Von Flesch (" Wiirzburger Festschrift," ii, 95, 
1882) may be found further data in regard to more recent 
cases. 

Many questions of physiological and psychological im- 
portance in respect to the capacity of development in cases 
of imperfectly developed brain are discussed in the " Zeit- 
schrift fur das Idioten-Wesen " by W. Schroter (Dresden) 
and E. Reichelt (Hubertusburg). 



APPENDIX B. 279 

But thus far the methods of microscopical investi- 
gation of the brain are still so little developed that we 
can not yet with certainty establish a causal connection, 
in individual cases, between the deviations of microce- 
phalic brains from the normal brain and the defects of 
the psychical functions. The number of brains of mi- 
crocephali that have been examined with reference to 
this point is very small, although their scientific value, 
after thorough-going observation of the possessors of them 
during life, is immense. For microcephalous children of 
some years of age are a substitute for imaginary, because 
never practicable, vivisectory experiments, concerning the 
connection of body and mind. 

To conclude these fragments, let me add here some 
observations concerning a case of rare interest, that of the 
microcephalous child, Margarethe Becker (born 1869), 
very well known in Germany. These observations I re- 
corded on the 9th of July, 1877, in Jena, while the child 
was left free to do what she pleased. 

The girl, eight years of age, born, according to the 
testimony of her father, with the frontal fontanelle (fon- 
ticulus anterior) closed and solid, had a smaller head than 
a child of one year. The notes follow the same order as 
that of the observations. 

Time, 8.15 A. M. — The child yawns. She grasps with 
animation at some human skulls that she sees on a table 
near her, and directs her look to charts on the walls. She 
puts her fingers into her nostrils, brushes her apron with 
both hands, polishes my watch, which I have offered her 
and she has seized, holds it to one ear, then to one of her 
father's ears, draws her mouth into a smile, seems to be 
pleased by the ticking, holds the watch to her father's 
other ear, then to her own other ear, laughs, and repeats 
the experiment several times. Her head is very mobile. 



280 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

The child now folds a bit of paper that I have given 
her, rolls it up awkwardly, wrinkling her forehead the 
while, chews up the paper and laughs aloud. Saliva flows 
from her mouth almost incessantly. Then the child be- 
gins to eat a biscuit, giving some of it, however, to her 
father and the attendant, putting her biscuit to their lips, 
and this with accuracy at once, whereas in the former case 
the watch was held at first near the ear, to the temple, and 
not till afterward to the ear itself. 

The girl is very lively ; she strikes about her in a lively 
manner with her hands, sees charts hanging high on the 
walls, points to them with her finger, throws her head 
back upon her neck to see them better, and moves her 
fingers in the direction of the lines of the diagrams. At 
last weariness seems to come on. The child puts an arm 
around the neck of her father, sits on his lap, but is more 
and more restless. 

8.50. — Quiet. To appearance, the child has fallen 
asleep. 

8.55. — Awake again. The child sees well, hears well, 
smells well; obeys some few commands, e. g., she gives 
her hand. But with this her intellectual accomplishments 
are exhausted. She does not utter a word. 

Kollmann, who saw this microcephalous subject in Sep- 
tember, 1877, writes, among other things, of her (" Cor- 
respondenzblatt der Deutschengesellschaft fur Anthro- 
pologic," iNr. 11, S. 132) : 

" Her gait is tottering, the movements of the head and 
extremities jerky, not always co-ordinated, hence unsteady, 
inappropriate and spasmodic ; her look is restless, objects 
are not definitely fixated. The normal functions of_ her 
mind are far inferior to those of a child of four years. 
The eight-year-old Margaret speaks only the word Mama ; 
no other articulate sound has been learned by her. She 
makes known her need of food by plaints, by sounds of 



APPENDIX B. 281 

weeping, and by distortion of countenance; she laughs 
when presented with something to eat or with toys. It is 
only within the last two years that she has become cleanly ; 
since then her appetite has improved. Her nutrition has 
gained, in comparison with the first years of life, and with 
it her comprehension also ; she helps her mother set the 
table, and brings plates and knives, when requested to do 
so, from the place where they are kept. Further, she shows 
a tender sympathy with her microcephalous brother ; she 
takes bread from the table, goes to her brother's bedside 
and feeds him, as he is not of himself capable of putting 
food into his mouth. She shows a very manifest liking 
for her relatives and a fear of strangers. When taken into 
the parlor she gave the most decided evidences of fear ; 
being placed upon the table she hid her head in her father's 
coat, and did not become quiet until her mother took her 
in her arms. This awakening of mental activity shows 
that, notwithstanding the extremely small quantity of 
brain-substance, there exists a certain degree of intellect- 
ual development with advancing years. With the fourth 
year, in the case of M., independent movements began ; 
up to that time she lay, as her five-year-old brother still 
lies, immovable in body and limbs, with the exception of 
slight bendings and stretchings." 

Richard Pott, who (1879) likewise observed this micro- 
cephalous subject, found that she wandered about aim- 
lessly, restlessly, and nimbly, from corner to corner [as if], 
groping and seeking; yet objects held before her were 
only momentarily fixated, scarcely holding her attention ; 
often she did not once grasp at them. " The girl goes 
alone, without tottering or staggering, but her locomotive 
movements are absolutely without motive, having no end 
or aim, frequently changing their direction. Notwith- 
standing her size, the child gives the impression of the 
most extreme helplessness." She was fed, but was not 
indifferent as to food, seeming to prefer sour to sweet. 
She would come, indeed, when she was called, but seemed 



282 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

not to understand the words spoken to her ; she spoke no 
word herself, but uttered shrill, inarticulate sounds ; she 
felt shame when she was undressed, hiding her face in her 
sister's lap. The expression of her countenance was harm- 
less, changeable, manifesting no definite psychical pro- 
cesses. 

The statements contradictory to those of Kollmann are 
probably to be explained by the brevity of the observa- 
tions. 

Virchow '(" Correspondenzblatt," S. 135), in his re- 
marks upon this case, says : " I am convinced that every 
one who observes the microcephalic child will find that 
psychologically it has nothing whatever of the ape. All 
the positive faculties and qualities of the ape are wanting 
here ; there is nothing of the psychology of the ape, but 
only the psychology of an imperfectly developed and de- 
ficient little child. Every characteristic is human ; every 
single trait. I had the girl in my room a few months 
since, for hours together, and occupied myself with her ; 
I never observed anything in her that reminds me even 
remotely of the psychological conditions of apes. She is 
a human being, in a low stage of development, but in no 
way deviating from the nature of humanity." 

From these reports it is plain to be seen that for all 
mental development an hereditary physical growth of the 
cerebrum is indispensable. If the sensuous impressions 
experienced anew in each case by each human being, and 
the original movements, were sufficient without the de- 
velopment of the cerebral convolutions and of the gray 
cortex, then these microcephalous beings, upon whom the 
same impressions operated as upon other new-born chil- 
dren, must have had better brains and must have learned 
more. But the brain, notwithstanding the peripheral im- 
pressions received in seeing, hearing, and feeling, could 



APPENDIX B. 283 

not grow, and so the rudimentary human child could not 
learn anything, and could not even form the ideas requisite 
for articulate voluntary movement, or combine these ideas. 
Only the motor centers of lower rank could be developed. 
In peculiar contrast with these cases of genuine micro- 
cephaly stands the exceedingly remarkable case, observed 
by Dr. Kudolf Krause (Hamburg), of a boy whose brain 
is not at all morbidly affected or abnormally small, but 
exhibits decidedly the type of the brain of the ape. The 
discoverer reported upon it to the Anthropological Society 
(" Correspondenzblatt a.a. 0., S. 132-135) the following 
facts among others : 

" The skull and brain belonged to a boy who was born 
on the 4th of October, 1869, the last of four children. 
Paul was scrofulous from his youth. He did not get his 
teeth until the end of his second year, and they were quite 
brown in color and were soon lost. According to the state- 
ment of Paul's mother, he had several successive sets of 
teeth. It was not until the fifth year that he learned to 
walk. He was cleanly from the third year, but not when 
he felt ill. His appetite was always good up to his last 
sickness of four weeks. His sleep was habitually undis- 
turbed. He was of a cheerful temperament, and inclined 
to play ; as soon as he heard music he would dance, and 
sing to the music in rather unmelodious tones. When 
teased he could be very violent ; he would throw anything 
he could lay his hands on at the head of the offender. He 
liked the company of others, especially of men. By the 
time he was four years old he had learned to eat without 
help. Paul was very supple, was fond of climbing, and 
had great strength in his arms and hands especially ; these 
had actually a horny appearance, and thus reminded one 
of the hands of the chimpanzee. He could sit on the 
ground with his legs wide apart. His gait was uncertain, 
and he was apt to tumble ; he ran with knees bent forward 
and legs crooked ; he was fond of hopping, and seemed 
particularly ape-like when doing so. The great-toe of 
each foot stood off at an angle from the foot, and thus 



284 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

gave the impression of a prehensile toe. I thought at first 
that this deviation had its origin in the fact that the child, 
on account of his uncertainty in walking, wanted to get a 
broader basis of support; but I afterward gave up that 
opinion, because I have never found an instance of a simi- 
lar habit in other children with diseased heads, e. g., hydro- 
cephalus children. Paul could speak but little, could say 
hardly any words except Papa and Mama, and even these 
he did not until late learn to pronounce in two syllables ; 
he uttered for the most part only sounds that resembled a 
grunt. He imitated the barking of a dog by the sound 
rrrrrr. He frequently stamped with feet and hands, 
clapped his hands together, and ejaculated a sort of grunt- 
ing sound, just as I have observed in the case of gorillas 
and chimpanzees. 

" Paul was smaller than children of his age ; on his 
right eye he had from his youth a large leucoma ; the eye- 
lids had generally a catarrhal affection, and were in a state 
of suppuration. The head looked sore ; the forehead was 
small. Paul had a strongly marked tendency to imita- 
tion. His whole being, his movements, were strikingly 
ape-like. He was decidedly neglected by his parents, was 
generally dirty in appearance, and I really think the early 
death of the child was induced by the slight care taken 
of him. Paul was taken sick at the beginning of Decem- 
ber, 1876, with an acute bronchial catarrh, and died on 
the 5th of January, 1877, at the age of seven and a quarter 
years. 

" If you look at the cranium and the brain here, which 
belonged to the child just described, there are lacking in 
the first place all the characteristics of microcephaly. The 
cranium possesses a capacity of 1,022 cubic centimetres, 
and the brain weighs 950 grammes ; they do not deviate, 
therefore, from the normal condition. But let the cra- 
nium, where it is laid open by the saw, be observed from 
within, and we notice an asymmetry of the two hemi- 
spheres of the train ; the cranium is pushed somewhat for- 
ward and to the right. The partes orbitales of the frontal 
bone are higher and more arched than is usual, in con- 
sequence of which the lamina cribrosa of the ethmoid 
bone lies deeper, and room is given for the well-knoAvn 



APPENDIX B. 285 

conformation of the ethmoidal process in the brain. The 
cerebral convolutions are plainly marked upon the inner 
surface of the cranium. The facial cranium shows no 
deviations. There is no prognathism. The formation of 
the teeth alone is irregular ; one pre-molar tooth is lack- 
ing above and below in the jaw, and, in fact, there is no 
place for it. The incisors and the pre-molar teeth are 
undergoing change. 

" The two cerebral hemispheres are asymmetrical ; in 
the region where the parieto-occipital fissure is situated on 
the left hemisphere, the two hemispheres diverge from 
each other and form an edge which curves outward and 
backward, so that the cerebellum remains uncovered. On 
the lower surface of the frontal lobes there exists a strongly 
marked ethmoidal prominence. Neither of the fissures of 
Sylvius is quite closed, the left less so than the right ; the 
operculum is but slightly developed, and the island of Eeil 
lies with its fissures almost entirely uncovered. This con- 
formation reminds us throughout of the brain of the an- 
thropoid apes. The two sulci centrales sive fissurm Bo- 
landi run straight to the border of the hemisphere, less 
deeply impressed than is normally the case, without form- 
ing an angle with each other. Very strongly and deeply 
impressed sulci prmcentrales seem to serve as substitutes 
for them. The sulcus interparietal , which begins farther 
outward than in the ordinary human being, receives the 
sulcus parieto-occipitalis — a structure in conformity with 
the typical brain of the ape. The sulcus occipitalis trans- 
versus, which is generally lightly stamped in man, extends 
here as a deep fissure across over the occipital lobe, thus 
producing a so-called simian fissure, and the posterior part 
of the occipital lobe has the appearance of an operculum. 
Tlaejissvira calcarina has its origin directly on the surface 
of the occipital lobe, does not receive until late thefissura 
parieto-occipitalis, and goes directly, on the right side, 
into the fissura hippocampi. This abnormal structure 
also is typical for the brain of the ape. 

" The gyrus occipitalis primus is separated from the 
upper parietal lobe by the sulcus parieto-occipitalis, a for- 
mation that, according to Gratiolet, exists in many apes. 
The gyrus temporalis superior is greatly reduced on both 



286 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

sides, and has an average breadth of only five millimetres ; 
it is the one peculiarity that recalls emphatically the brain 
of the chimpanzee, which always has this reduced upper 
temporal convolution. 

" We have here, then, a brain that scarcely deviates 
from the normal brain in volume, that possesses all the 
convolutions and fissures, seeming, perhaps, richer than 
the average brain in convolutions, and that is in every 
respect differentiated ; and notwithstanding all this it ap- 
proximates, in its whole structure, to the simian rather 
than to the human type. Had the brain been placed be- 
fore me without my knowing its origin, I should have 
been perfectly justified in assigning this brain to an an- 
thropoid ape standing somewhat nearer to man than does 
the chimpanzee." 

~No second case of this sort has thus far been observed. 



C. 

EEPOETS CONCERNING THE PEOCESS OF LEARNING TO 
SEE, ON THE PAET OF PEESONS BOEN BLIND, BUT AC- 
QUIRING SIGHT THROUGH SURGICAL TREATMENT. ALSO 
SOME CRITICAL REMARKS. 

I. The Chesselden Case. 

The following extracts are taken from the report pub- 
lished by "Will. Chesselden in the " Philosophical Trans- 
actions for the Months of April, May, and June, 1728 " 
(No. 402, London, pp. 447-450), or the "Philosophical 
Transactions from 1719 to 1733, abridged by J. Eames 
and J. Martyn " (vii, 3, pp. 491-493, London, 1734) : 

" Though we say of the gentleman that he was blind, 
as we do of all people who have ripe cataracts, yet they 
are never so blind from that cause but that they can dis- 
cern day from night, and, for the most part, in a strong 
light distinguish black, white, and scarlet ; but they can 



APPEXDIX c. 287 

not perceive the shape of anything. . . . And thus it was 
with this young gentleman, who, though he knew these 
colors asunder in a good light, yet when he saw them after 
he was couched, the faint ideas he had of them before 
were not sufficient for him to know them by afterward, 
and therefore he did not think them the same which he 
had known before by those names. . . . 

" When he first saw, he was so far from making any 
judgment about distances, that he thought all objects 
whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed it) as what he 
felt did his skin, and. thought no objects so agreeable as 
those which were smooth and regular. He knew not the 
shape of anything nor any one thing from another, how- 
ever different in shape or magnitude ; but upon being told 
what things were, whose form he before knew from feel- 
ing, he would carefully observe, that he might know them 
again. But, having too many objects to learn at once, he 
forgot many of them, and (as he said) at first he learned 
to know and again forgot a thousand things in a day. 
Having often forgot which was the cat and which the dog, 
he was ashamed to ask ; but catching the cat (which he 
knew by feeling), he was observed to look at her stead- 
fastly, and then, setting her down, said, ' So, puss, I shall 
know you another time.' He was very much surprised that 
those things which he had liked best did not appear most 
agreeable to his eyes, expecting those persons would appear 
most beautiful that he loved most, and such things to be 
most agreeable to his sight that were so to his taste. We 
thought he soon knew what pictures represented which 
were showed to him, but we found afterward we were mis- 
taken, for about two months after he was couched he dis- 
covered at once they represented solid bodies, when to that 
time he considered them only as party-colored planes or 
surfaces diversified with variety of paint ; but even then 
he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would feel 
like the things they represented, and was amazed when he 
found those parts, which by their light and shadow ap- 
peared now round and uneven, felt only flat like the rest, 
and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing ? 

" Being shown his father's picture in a locket at his 
mother's watch and told what it was, he acknowledged a 



238 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

likeness, but was vastly surprised, asking how it could be 
that a large face could be expressed in so little room. 

" At first he could bear but very little sight, and the 
things he saw he thought extremely large ; but, upon see- 
ing things larger, those first seen he conceived less, never 
being able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he saw. 
The room he was in he said he knew to be but part of the 
house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house 
could look bigger. Before he was couched he expected 
little advantage from seeing, except reading and writing. 
Blindness, he observed, had this advantage, that he could 
go anywhere in the dark much better than those who 
could see, and after he had seen he did not soon lose this 
quality nor desire a light to go about the house in the 
night. 

" A year after first seeing, being carried upon Epsom 
Downs and observing a large prospect, he was exceedingly 
delighted with it and called it a new kind of seeing ; and 
now being lately couched of his other eye, he says that ob- 
jects at first appeared large to this eye but not so large as 
they did at first to the other, and, looking upon the same 
object with both eyes, he thought it looked about twice as 
large as with the first couched eye only, but not double, 
that we can anywise discover." 

Remark on the First Case. 

Although this Ohesselden case is the most famous of 
all, and the most frequently cited, it belongs, nevertheless, 
to those most inaccurately described. It is, however, not 
only the first in the order of time, but especially impor- 
tant for the reason that it demonstrates in a striking man- 
ner the slow acquirement of space-perception by the eye, 
and also the acquirement of the first and second dimen- 
sions of space (cf. vol. i, p. 57). 

II., III. The Ware Cases. 

One of these cases is that of a boy, who at the age of 
seven years recovered his sight which he had lost in the 



APPENDIX C. 289 

first half-year of his life. The surgeon who performed the 
operation, James Ware, writes ("Philosophical Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society for 1801," ii, London, 1801, pp. 
382-396) : 

" The young W. appeared to be a healthy, perfect 
child ; his eyes in particular were large and rather promi- 
nent. About the end of his first year, a number of per- 
sons passing in procession near his father's house, accom- 
panied with music and flags, the child was taken to see 
them ; but, instead of looking at the procession, it was ob- 
served that, though he was evidently much pleased with 
the music, his eyes were never directed to the place from 
whence the sound came. His mother, alarmed by this 
discovery, held silver spoons and other glaring objects be- 
fore him at different distances, and she was soon convinced 
that he was unable to perceive any of them. A surgeon 
was consulted, who, on examining the eyes, pronounced 
that there was a complete cataract in each. All thoughts of 
assisting his sight were (for the present) relinquished. As 
soon as he could speak it was observed that when an ob- 
ject was held close to his eyes he was able to distinguish 
its color if strongly marked, but on no occasion did he 
ever notice its outline or figure. I performed the opera- 
tion on the left eye on the 29th of December, 1800. The 
eye was immediately bound up, and no inquiries made on 
that day with regard to his sight. On the 30th I found 
that he had experienced a slight sickness on the preceding 
evening. On the 31st, as soon as I entered his chamber, 
the mother with much joy informed me that her child 
could see. About an hour before my visit he was stand- 
ing near the fire, with a handkerchief tied loosely over his 
eyes, when he told her that under the handkerchief, which 
had slipped upward, he could distinguish the table by the 
side of which she was sitting. It was about a yard and a 
half from him, and he observed that it was covered with a 
green cloth (which was really the case), and that it was a 
little farther off than he was able to reach. . . . Desirous 
to ascertain whether he was able to distinguish objects, I 
held a letter before him at the distance of about twelve 
inches, when he told me, after a short hesitation, that it 



290 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

was a piece of paper ; that it was square, which he knew 
by its corners; and that it was longer in one direction 
than it was in the other. On being desired to point to 
the corners, he did it with great precision and readily car- 
ried his finger in the line of its longest diameter. I then 
showed him a small oblong bandbox covered with red 
leather, which he said was red and square, and pointed at 
once to its four corners. After this I placed before him 
an oval silver box, which he said had a shining appear- 
ance, and presently afterward that it was round, because it 
had not corners. A white stone mug he first called a 
white basin, but soon after, recollecting himself, said it 
was a mug because it had a handle. I held the objects at 
different distances from his eye and inquired very particu- 
larly if he was sensible of any difference in their situation, 
which he always said he was, informing me on every 
change whether they were brought nearer to or carried 
farther from him. I again inquired, both of his mother 
and himself, whether he had ever before this time dis- 
tinguished by sight any sort of object, and I was assured 
by both that he never had on any occasion, and that when 
he wished to discover colors, which he could only do when 
they were very strong, he had always been obliged to hold 
the colored object close to his eye and a little on one side 
to avoid the projection of the nose. ]STo further experi- 
ments were made on that day. On the 1st of January I 
found that he felt no uneasiness on the approach of light. 
I showed him a table-knife, which at first he called a 
spoon, but soon rectified the mistake, giving it the right 
name and distinguishing the blade from the handle by 
pointing to each as he was desired. He called a yellow 
pocket-book by its name, taking notice of the silver lock in 
the cover. I held my hand before him, which he knew, 
but could not at first tell the number of my fingers nor 
distinguish one of them from another. I then held up his 
own hand and desired him to remark the difference be- 
tween his thumb and his fingers, after which he readily 
pointed out the distinctions in mine also. Dark-colored 
and smooth objects were more agreeable to him than those 
which were bright and rough. On the 3d of January he 
saw from the drawing-room window a dancing bear in the 



APPENDIX C. 291 

street and distinguished a number of boys that were stand- 
ing round him, noticing particularly a bundle of clothes 
which one of them had on his head. On the same even- 
ing I placed him before a looking-glass and held up his 
hand. After a little time he smiled and said he saw the 
shadow of his hand as well as that of his head. He could 
not then distinguish his features; but on the following 
day, his mother having again placed him before the glass, 
he pointed to his eyes, nose, and mouth. The young W., 
a remarkably intelligent boy (of seven years), gave the 
most direct and satisfactory answers to every question that 
was put to him, and, though not born blind, certainly had 
not any recollection of having ever seen. The right eye 
was operated upon a month after the left, but without the 
least success." 

In regard to the other case, Ware writes : " In the 
instance of a young gentleman from Ireland, fourteen 
years old, from each of whose eyes I extracted a cataract 
in the year 1794, and who, before the operation, assured 
me, as did his friends, that he had never seen the figure 
of any object, I was astonished by the facility with which, 
on the first experiment, he took hold of my hand at dif- 
ferent distances, mentioning whether it was brought 
nearer to or carried farther from him, and conveying his 
hand to mine in a circular direction, that we [Ware and 
another physician] might be the better satisfied of the 
accuracy with which he did it." In this case, as in others 
of like nature, Ware could not, "although the patients 
had certainly been blind from early infancy," satisfy him- 
self " that they had not, before this period, enjoyed a suf- 
ficient degree of sight to impress the image of visible ob- 
jects on their minds, and to give them ideas which could 
not afterward be entirely obliterated." 

Ware found, moreover, that, in the case of two chil- 
dren between seven and eight years of age, both blind 
from birth, and on whom no operation had been per- 
formed, the knowledge of colors, limited as it was, was 
sufficient to enable them to tell whether colored objects 
were brought nearer to or carried farther from them ; for 



292 TEE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 

instance, whether they were at the distance of two inches 
or four inches from their eyes ; and he himself observes 
that they were not, in strictness of speech, blind, though 
they were deprived of all useful sight. 

Remarks on the Second and Third Cases. 

It is a surprising thing, in the account of the former case, 
that nothing whatever is said of the behavior of the patient 
on the first and on the fourth day after the operation. We 
must assume that he passed the first day wholly with his 
eyes bandaged. Further, the boy pointed out four corners 
of a box, while the box had eight ; yet no inference can be 
drawn from this, for possibly only one side of the box was 
shown to him. The most remarkable thing is the statement 
of the patient that he saw the shadoio of his hand in the 
glass. This circumstance, and the astonishing certainty, at 
the very first attempts to estimate space-relations, in the dis- 
crimination of round and angular, and in the observation 
that the table was somewhat farther from him than he 
could reach, show what influence the mere ability to per- 
ceive colors has upon vision in space. Before the opera- 
tion, W. distinguished only striking colors from one an- 
other; but he could perceive nearness and distance of 
colored objects, within narrow limits, by the great differ- 
ences in the luminous intensity of the colors. He distin- 
guished with certainty dimness from brightness. Accord- 
ingly, when he noticed a decrease in the brightness of a 
color, he inferred the distance of the colored object from 
the eye, regulating his judgment also by touch. Thus the 
boy had, before the operation, some perception of space 
with the eye, and it is not much to be wondered at, con- 
sidering his uncommon intelligence, that he, soon after 
the operation (probably attempts at seeing were secretly 
made by the patient on the first day) learned to judge 



APPENDIX C. 293 

pretty surely of space-relations — much more surely than a 
person born blind learns to judge in so short a time. Be- 
sides, it is not to be forgotten that, while it is true that the 
cataract had become completely developed at the end of 
the first year of life, there is no proof that the child was un- 
able to see during the first months. At that time images, 
as in the second case, may have unconsciously impressed 
themselves, with which, at a later period, more accurate 
space-ideas may have been associated, through the sense 
of touch, than is the case with persons born completely 
blind. Ware concludes, from his observations — 

1. " When children are born blind, in consequence of 
having cataracts in their eyes, they are never so totally 
deprived of sight as not to be able to distinguish colors ; 
and, though they can not see the figure of an object, nor 
even its color, unless it be placed within a very short dis- 
tance, they nevertheless can tell whether, when within 
this distance, it be brought nearer to or carried farther 
from them. 

2. " In consequence of this power, whilst in a state of 
comparative blindness, children who have their cataracts 
removed are enabled immediately on the acquisition of 
sight to form some judgment of the distance, and even of 
the outline, of those strongly defined objects with the color 
of which they were previously acquainted." 

Both these conclusions are simply matter of fact. It 
only needs explanation how the distance and outlines of 
objects can be known after the operation in consequence 
of the ability described in the first proposition. That dis- 
tance is actually estimated at once in consequence of this 
power, is clear ; not so with the outlines. How can round 
and angular be distinguished, when only colors and gross 
differences of intensity and saturation are perceived? 
Ware gives no solution of the difficulty, but thinks that, 
because the colors appeared more intense, the previously 
22 



294: THE MIND OF THE CUILD. 

imperfect ideas concerning distances might be improved 
and extended, so that they would even give a knowledge of 
the boundary-lines and of the form of those things with 
the color of which the patients were previously acquainted. 
But this improvement of the ideas concerning distance 
can not lead directly to discrimination of the limits of ob- 
jects, and is itself hypothetical, inasmuch as we might 
expect, immediately after the operation, on account of the 
enormous difference in the luminous intensity, an uncer- 
tainty in the judgment. But such uncertainty appeared 
only in a slight degree in both the cases, a thing possible 
only because there had already been sufficient experiences 
with the eye. But these experiences, as is frequently 
stated, were absolutely lacking in regard to the limits and 
the form of objects. Here another thing comes in to help. 
Evidently, an eye that distinguishes only colors sees these 
colors always only as limited ; even if it saw only a single 
color that occupied the whole field of vision, the field 
would still be a limited one. But the colored field may 
be small or large, and this difference may be noticed before 
the operation. If the object — one of vivid coloring — is 
long and narrow, the patient, even before the operation, 
will see it otherwise than if it is, with the same coloring, 
short and broad. And suppose he merely observes that 
not the whole field of vision is colored. If the whole field 
is colored, there is, of course, an entire lack of angles ; on 
the other hand, if the whole field of vision is not filled by 
the colored object, then it is — however faintly — divided, 
and the lines of division, i. e., the indistinct boundary-lines 
of the objects whose color is perceived, may be either like 
the natural limits of the entire field of vision, i. e., "round," 
or unlike them, i. e., " angular." If, now, the obstacle is 
suddenly removed, the patient (even if he did not before 
the operation distinguish angular and round by the eye) 



APPENDIX C. 295 

must yet perceive which of the objects before him resem- 
ble in contour the previous field of vision, i. e., are round, 
and which do not ; for the round contour of his field of 
vision is familiar to him. But W. had learned, through 
the sense of touch, that what is not round is angular. He 
would, therefore, even if he could perceive colors when the 
whole field of vision was filled — a matter on which we have 
no information — be able to guess the outlines of some ob- 
jects soon after the operation, merely on the ground of his 
experiences before it. It was guess-work every time, as 
appears from the confounding of kuife and spoon, mug 
and basin. The boy must have thought, " How would it 
be if I felt of it ? " and, as he had before the opera- 
tion frequently observed that whatever had the same 
contour as his field of vision, or a contour similar to 
that, was round, he could, after the operation, distin- 
guish round and not round — a thing which a person 
born blind, on the other hand, and knowing nothing 
of his field of vision, because he has never had any, can 
never do. 

On the whole, the two Ware cases are by no means so 
important as the Franz (see below) and Chesselden cases, 
because the boy, "W., had ample opportunity up to his sev- 
enth year for learning to distinguish different colors ac- 
cording to their quality and luminous intensity ; because 
he must have known the limits of his field of vision, and 
could in any case, by means of touch, correct and relatively 
confirm his very frequent attempts to guess at forms and 
distances by the eye. Finally, it is not known whether he 
became blind before or immediately after his birth, or, as 
is most probable, not till some months after birth. The 
same is true of the second case. 



296 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

IV, V. The Home Cases. 

Everard Home makes the following statement in the 
" Philosophical Transactions of the Eoyal Society," Lon- 
don, 1807, i, pp. 83-87, 91 : 

" 1. William Stiff, twelve years of age, had cataracts 
in his eyes, which, according to the account of his mother, 
existed at the time of birth. From earliest infancy he 
never stretched out his hand to catch at anything, nor 
were his eyes directed to objects placed before him, but 
rolled about in a very unusual manner. The eyes were 
not examined till he was six months old, and at that time 
the cataracts were as distinct as when he was received into 
the hospital. He could at that time (July 17, 1806) dis- 
tinguish light from darkness, and the light of the sun 
from that of a fire or candle ; he said it was redder and 
more pleasant to look at, but lightning made a still stronger 
impression on his eyes. All these different lights he called 
red. The sun appeared to him the size of his hat. The 
candle-flame was larger than his finger and smaller than 
his arm. When he looked at the sun, he said it appeared 
to touch his eye. When a lighted candle was placed be- 
fore him, both his eyes were directed toward it, and moved 
together. When it was at any nearer distance than twelve 
inches, he said it touched his eyes. When moved farther 
off he said it did not touch them, and at twenty-two inches 
it became invisible. 

" On the 21st of July the operation of extracting the 
crystalline lens was performed on the left eye. Light be- 
came very distressing to his eye. After allowing the eye- 
lids to remain closed for a few minutes, and then opening 
them, the pupil appeared clear, but he could not bear ex- 
posure to light. On my asking him what he had seen, he 
said, ' Your head, which seemed to touch my eye,' but he 
could not tell its shape. On the 22d the light was less 
offensive. He said he saw my head, which touched his 
eye. On the 23d the eye was less inflamed, and he could 
bear a weak light. He said he could see several gentlemen 
round him, but could not describe their figure. My face, 
while I was looking at his eye, he said was round and red. 



APPENDIX C. 297 

From the 25th of July to the 1st of August there was in- 
flammation. On the 4th of August an attempt was made 
to ascertain the powers of vision ; it became necessary to 
shade the glare of light by hanging a white cloth before 
the window. The least exertion fatigued the eye, and the 
cicatrix on the cornea, to which the iris had become at- 
tached, drew it down so as considerably to diminish the 
pupil. The attempt had therefore to be postponed. 

" On the 16th of September the right eye was couched. 
The light was so distressing to his eye that the lids were 
closed as soon as it was over. The eyes were not examined 
with respect to their vision till the 13th of October ; the 
boy remained quiet in the hospital. On this day he could 
discern a white, red, or yellow color, particularly when 
bright and shining. The sun and other objects did not 
now seem to touch his eyes as before, they appeared to be 
at a short distance from him. The right eye had the most 
distinct vision, but in both it was imperfect. The distance 
at which he saw best was five inches. When the object 
was of a bright color, and illuminated by a strong light, 
he could make out that it was flat and broad ; and when 
one corner of a square substance was pointed out to him, 
he saw it, and could find out the other, which was at the 
end of the same side, but could not do this under less 
favorable circumstances. When the four corners of a 
white card were pointed out, and he had examined them, 
he seemed to know them ; but when the opposite surface 
of the same card, which was yellow, was placed before him, 
he could not tell whether it had corners or not, so that he 
had not acquired any correct knowledge of them, since he 
could not apply it to the next colored surface, whose form 
was exactly the same with that, the outline of which the 
eye had just been taught to trace. . . . 

" 2. John Salter, seven years of age, was admitted into 
St. George's Hospital on the 1st of October, 1806, with 
cataracts in both eyes, which, according to the accounts of 
his relations, had existed from his birth. The pupils con- 
tracted considerably when a lighted candle was placed be- 
fore him, and dilated as soon as it was withdrawn. He 
was capable of distinguishing colors with tolerable accu- 
racy, particularly the more bright and vivid ones. On the 



298 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

6th of October the left eye was couched. The eye was 
allowed ten minutes to recover itself; a round piece of 
card, of a yellow color, one inch in diameter, was then 
placed about six inches from it. He said immediately 
that it was yellow, and, on being asked its shape, said, 
4 Let me touch it, and I will tell you.' Being told that he 
must not touch it, after looking for some time, he said it 
was round. A square, blue card, nearly the same size, be- 
ing put before him, he said it was blue and round. A 
triangular piece he also called round. The different colors 
of the objects placed before him he instantly decided on 
with great correctness, but had no idea of their form. He 
saw best at a distance of six or seven inches. He was asked 
whether the object seemed to touch his eye ; he said, ' No,' 
but when desired to say at what distance it was, he could 
not tell. The eye was covered, and he was put to bed and 
told to keep himself quiet; but upon the house-surgeon 
going to him half an hour afterward, his eye was found 
uncovered, and he was looking at his bed-curtains, which 
were close drawn. The bandage was replaced, but so de- 
lighted was the boy with seeing, that he again immediately 
removed it. The house-surgeon could not enforce his in- 
structions, and repeated the experiment about two hours 
after the operation. Upon being shown a square, and 
asked if he could find any corners to it, the boy was very 
desirous of touching it. This being refused, he examined 
it for some time, and said at last that he had found a 
corner, and then readily counted the four corners of the 
square; and afterward, when a triangle was shown him, 
he counted the corners in the same way ; but in doing so 
his eye went along the edge from corner to corner, nam- 
ing them as he went along. Next day he told me he had 
seen ' the soldiers with their fifes and pretty things.' The 
guards in the morning had marched past the hospital with 
their band ; on hearing the music, he had got out of bed 
and gone to the window to look at them. Seeing the 
bright barrels of muskets, he must in his mind have con- 
nected them with the sounds which he heard, and mis- 
taken them for musical instruments. Twenty-four hours 
after the operation the pupil of the eye was clear. A pair 
of scissors was shown him, and he said it was a knife. On 



APPENDIX C. 299 

being told lie was wrong, he could not make them out ; 
but the moment he touched them he said they were scis- 
sors, and seemed delighted with the discovery. 

" From this time he was constantly improving himself 
by looking at, and examining with his hands, everything 
within his reach, but he frequently forgot what he had 
learned. On the 10th I saw him again. He went to the 
window and called out, ' What is that moving ? ' I asked 
him what he thought it was. He said : ' A dog drawing 
a wheelbarrow. There is one, two, three dogs drawing 
another. How very pretty!' These proved to be carts 
and horses on the road, which he saw from a two-pair-of- 
stairs window. 

" On the 19th the different colored pieces of card were 
separately placed before his eye, and so little had he gained 
in thirteen days that he could not, without counting their 
corners one by one, tell their shape. This he did with 
great facility, running his eye quickly along the outline, 
so that it was evident he was still learning, just as a child 
learns to read. He had got so far as to know the angles, 
when they were placed before him, and to count the num- 
ber belonging to any one object. The reason of his mak- 
ing so slow a progress was, that these figures had never 
been subjected to examination by touch, and were unlike 
anything he had been accustomed to see. He had got so 
much the habit of assisting his eyes with his hands, that 
nothing but holding them could keep them from the 
object. 

" On the 26th the experiments were again repeated on 
the couched eye. It was now found that the boy, on look- 
ing at any one of the cards in a good light, could tell the 
form nearly as readily as the color." 

From these two instructive cases Home concludes : 

" That, where the eye, before the cataract is removed, 
has only been capable of discerning light, without being 
able to distinguish colors, objects after its removal will 
seem to touch the eye, and there will be no knowledge of 
their outline, which confirms the observations, made by 
Chesselden. 

" That where the eye has previously distinguished 
colors, there must also be an imperfect knowledge of dis- 



300 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

tances, but not of outline, which, however, will be very 
soon acquired, as happened in Ware's cases. This is proved 
by the history of the first boy, who, before the operation 
had no knowledge of colors or distances, but after it, when 
his eye had only arrived at the same state that the second 
boy's was in before the operation, he had learned that the 
objects were at a distance and of different colors. 

" That when a child has acquired a new sense, nothing 
but great pain or absolute coercion will prevent him from 
making use of it." 

VI. The Wardrop Case. 

James Wardrop reports (" Philosophical Transactions 
of the Royal Society for 1826," iii, 529-540, London, 
1826) : 

" A girl who was observed, during the first months of 
her infancy, to have something peculiar in the appearance, 
of her eyes and an unusual groping manner which made 
her parents suspect that she had defective vision, had an 
operation performed on both eyes at the age of about six 
months The right eye was entirely destroyed in conse- 
quence. The left eye was preserved, but the child could 
only distinguish a very light from a very dark room with- 
out having the power to perceive even the situation of the 
window through which the light entered, though in sun- 
shine or in bright moonlight she knew the direction from 
which the light emanated. In this case no light could 
reach the retina except such rays as could pass through 
the substance of the iris. Until her forty-sixth year the 
patient could not perceive objects and had no notion of 
colors. On the 26th of January I introduced a very 
small needle through the cornea and the center of the 
iris ; but I could not destroy any of the adhesions which 
had shut up the pupillar opening. After this operation 
she said she could distinguish more light, but she could 
perceive neither forms nor colors. On the 8th of Febru- 
ary the iris (a portion of it) was divided. The light be- 
came offensive to her. She complained of its brightness, 
and was frequently observed trying to see her hands ; but 



APPENDIX C. 301 

it was evident that her vision was very imperfect, for, al- 
though there was an incision made in the iris, some opaque 
matter lay behind the opening, which must have greatly 
obstructed the entrance of light. 

" On the 17th of February a third operation. The 
opening was enlarged and the opaque matter removed. 
The operation being performed at my house, she returned 
home in a carriage, with her eye covered only with a loose 
piece of silk, and the first thing she noticed was a hackney- 
coach passing, when she exelaimed, ' What is that large 
thing that has passed by us ? ' In the course of the even- 
ing she requested her brother to show her his watch, con- 
cerning which she expressed much curiosity, and she 
looked at it a considerable time, holding it close to her 
eye. She was asked what she saw, and she said there was 
a dark and a bright side ; she pointed to the hour of 
twelve, and smiled. Her brother asked her if she saw any- 
thing more. She replied, ' Yes,' and pointed to the hour 
of six and to the hands of the watch. She then looked at 
the chain and seals, and observed that one of the seals was 
bright, which was the case. The following day I asked 
her to look again at the watch, which she refused to do, 
saying that the light was offensive to her eye and that she 
felt very stupid, meaning that she was much confused by 
the visible world thus for the first time opened to her. 

" On the third day she observed the doors on the op- 
posite side of the street and asked if they were red, bat 
they were, in fact, of an oak-color. In the evening she 
looked at her brother's face and said that she saw his nose. 
He asked her to touch it, which she did. He then slipped 
a handkerchief over his face and asked her to look again, 
when she playfully pulled it off and asked, 'What is 
that?' 

" On the sixth day she told us that she saw better than 
she had done on any preceding day ; ' but I can not tell 
what I do see. I am quite stupid.' She felt disappointed 
in not having the power of distinguishing at once by her 
eye objects which she could so readily distinguish from 
one another by feeling them. 

" On the seventh day she observed that the mistress of 
the house was tall. She asked what the color of her gown 



302 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

was, to which she was answered that it was blue. * So 13 
that thing on your head,' she then observed, which was the 
case; 'and your handkerchief, that is a different color, 5 
which was also correct. She added, ' I see you pretty well, 
I think.' The teacups and saucers underwent an exam- 
ination. 'What are they like?' her brother asked her. 
' I don't know,' she replied, ' they look very queer to me, 
but I can tell what they are in a minute when I touch 
them.' She distinguished an orange, but could form no 
notion of what it was till she touched it. She seemed now 
to have become more cheerful, and she was very sanguine 
that she would find her newly acquired faculty of more 
use to her when she returned home, where everything was 
familiar to her. 

"On the eighth day she asked her brother ' what he 
was helping himself to ? ' and when she was told it was a 
glass of port wine, she replied, ' Port wine is dark, and 
looks to me very ugly.' She observed, when candles were 
brought into the room, her brother's face in the mirror as 
well as that of a lady who was present ; she also walked 
for the first time without assistance from her chair to a 
sofa which was on the opposite side of the room and back 
again to the chair. When at tea she took notice of the 
tray, observed the shining of the japan- work, and asked 
' what the color was round the edge ? ' she was told that 
it was yellow, upon which she remarked, ' I will know that 
again.' 

" On the ninth day she came down-stairs to breakfast 
in great spirits. She said to her brother, ' I see you very 
well to-day,' and came up to him and shook hands. She 
also observed a ticket on a window of a house on the op- 
posite side of the street ('a lodging to let'), and her 
brother, to convince himself of her seeing it, took her to 
the window three several times, and to his surprise and 
gratification she pointed it out to him distinctly on each 
trial. 

" She spent a great part of the eleventh day looking 
out of the window, and spoke very little. 

" On the twelfth day she went to walk with her 
brother. The clear blue sky first attracted her notice, 
and she said, ' It is the prettiest thing I have ever seen 



APPENDIX C. 303 

yet, and equally pretty every time I turn round and look 
at it.' She distinguished the street from the foot-pave- 
ment distinctly, and stepped from one to the other like a 
person accustomed to the use of her eyes. Her great curi- 
osity, and the manner in which she stared at the variety of 
objects and pointed to them, exciting the observation of 
many by-standers, her brother soon conducted her home, 
much against her will. 

" On the evening of the thirteenth day she observed 
that there was a different tea-tray, and that it was not a 
pretty one, but had a dark border, which was a correct 
description. Her brother asked her to look in the mirror 
and tell him if she saw his face in it, to which she an- 
swered, evidently disconcerted : ' I see my own ; let me go 
away.' 

" On the fourteenth day she drove in a carriage four 
miles, and noticed the trees, and likewise the river Thames 
as she crossed Vauxhall Bridge. At this time it was bright 
sunshine, and she said something dazzled her when she 
looked on the water. 

" On the fifteenth day she walked to a chapel. The 
people passing on the pavement startled her, and once 
when a gentleman was going past her who had a white 
waistcoat and a blue coat with yellow buttons, which the 
sunshine brought full in her view, she started so as to 
draw her brother, who was walking with her, off the pave- 
ment. She distinguished the clergyman moving his hands 
in the pulpit, and observed that he held something in them. 
This was a white handkerchief. 

"On the sixteenth day she went in a coach through 
the town, and appeared much entertained with the bustle 
in the streets. On asking her how she saw on that day, 
she answered : ' I see a great deal, if I could only tell what 
I do see ; but surely I am very stupid.' 

" On the seventeenth day, when her brother asked her 
how she was, she replied : ' I am well, and see better ; but 
don't tease me with too many questions till I have learned 
a little better how to make use of my eye. All that I can 
say is, that I am sure, from what I do see, a great change 
has taken place, but I can not describe what I feel.' 

" On the eighteenth day, when pieces of paper one inch 



304 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

and a half square, differently colored, were presented to 
her, she not only distinguished them at once from one an- 
other, but gave a decided preference to some colors, liking 
yellow most, and then pale pink. When desirous of ex- 
amining an object, she had considerable difficulty in di- 
recting her eye to it and finding out its position, moving 
her hand as well as her eye in various directions, as a per- 
son when blindfolded or in the dark gropes with his hands 
for what he wishes to touch. She also distinguished a 
large from a small object when they were both held up 
before her for comparison. She said she saw different 
forms in various objects which were shown to her. On 
asking what she meant by different forms, such as long, 
round, and square, and desiring her to draw with her 
finger these forms on her other hand, and then presenting 
to her eye the respective forms, she pointed to them ex- 
actly ; she not only distinguished small from large objects, 
but knew what was meant by above and below. A figure, 
drawn with ink, was placed before her eye, having one end 
broad and the other narrow, and she saw the positions as 
they really were, and not inverted. 

" She could also perceive motions, for, when a glass of 
water was placed on the table before her, on approaching 
her hand near it, it was moved quickly to a greater dis- 
tance, upon which she immediately said : i You move it ; 
you take it away.' 

" She seemed to have the greatest difficulty in finding 
out the distance of any object ; for, when an object was 
held close to her eye, she would search for it by stretching 
her hand far beyond its position, while on other occasions 
she groped close to her own face for a thing far removed 
from her. 

" She learned with facility the names of the different 
colors, and two days after the colored papers had been 
shown to her, on coming into a room the color of which 
was crimson, she observed that it was red. She also ob- 
served some pictures hanging on the red wall of the room 
in which she was sitting, distinguishing several small fig- 
ures in them, but not knowing what they represented, and 
admiring the gilt frames. On the same day she walked 
round a pond, and was pleased with the glistening of the 



APFENDIX C. 305 

sun's rays on the water, as well as with the blue sky and 
green shrubs, the colors of which she named correctly. 

" She had as yet acquired, by the use of her sight, but 
very little knowledge of any forms, and was unable to ap- 
ply the information gained by this new sense, and to com- 
pare it with what she had been accustomed to acquire by 
her sense of touch. When, therefore, a silver pencil-case 
and a large key were given her to examine with her hands, 
she discriminated and knew each distinctly; but when 
they were placed on the table, side by side, though she 
distinguished each with her eye, yet she could not tell 
which was the pencil-case and which was the key. 

" On the twenty-fifth day after the operation she drove 
in a carriage for an hour in the Kegent's Park, and asked 
more questions, on her way there, than usual, about the 
objects surrounding her, such as, ' What is that ? ' ' It is 
a soldier,' she was answered. 'And that? See, see!' These 
were candles of various colors in a tallow-chandler's win- 
dow. ' Who is that that has passed us just now ? ' It 
was a person on horseback. ' But what is that on the 
pavement, red ? ' It was some ladies who wore red shawls. 
On going into the park she was asked if she could guess 
what any of the objects were. ' Oh, yes,' she replied, 
' there is the sky ; that is the grass ; yonder is water, and 
two white things,' which were two swans. 

" When she left London, forty-two days after the opera- 
tion, she had acquired a pretty accurate notion of colors 
and their different shades and names. She had not yet 
acquired anything like an accurate knowledge of distance 
or of forms, and, up to this period, she continued to be 
very much confused with every new object at which she 
looked. Neither was she yet able, without considerable 
difficulty and numerous fruitless trials, to direct her eye 
to an object ; so that, when she attempted to look at any- 
thing, she turned her head in various directions, until her 
eye caught the object of which it was in search." 

Remarks on the Sixth Case. 

This case has been adduced as a proof that the sense of 
sight is sufficient, without aid from the sense of touch, to 



306 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

perceive whether an object is brought nearer the eye or 
carried farther from it. But John Stuart Mill rightly 
observes, in opposition to this (" Dissertations and Discus- 
sions," ii, 113 ; London, 1859), that the observation we are 
concerned with was not made "till the eighteenth day 
after the operation, by which time a middle-aged woman 
might well have acquired the experience necessary for dis- 
tinguishing so simple a phenomenon." Besides, she was 
very uncertain in her judgment of distances, and, in her 
attempts to seize with the hand new and distant objects, 
she frequently acted exactly like an infant. 

VII. The Franz Case. 

J. C. A. Franz, of Leipsic, communicates the following 
to the " Philosophical Transactions of the Eoyal Society " 
(by Sir Benjamin C. Brodie), (London, 1841 ; i, pp. 
59-69) : 

" F. J. is the son of a physician. He is endowed with 
an excellent understanding, quick power of conception, 
and retentive memory. At his birth, both eyes were 
found to be turned inward to such an extent that a por- 
tion of the cornea was hidden by the inner canthus, and 
in both pupils there was a yellowish-white discoloration. 
That the strabismus and cataract of both eyes in this case 
were congenital is evident from the testimony both of the 
parents and of the nurse. The latter held a light before 
the eyes of the child when he was a few months old, of 
which he took no notice. I ascertained also from her that 
the eyeballs did not move hither and thither, but were 
always turned inward, and that but rarely either the one 
or the other was moved from the internal canthus. 

" Toward the end of the second year, as was stated to 
me, the operation of keratonyxis was performed on the 
right eye, upon which a severe iritis ensued, terminating 
in atrophy of the eyeball. Within the next four years two 
similar operations were performed on the left eye without 
success. The color of the opacity became, however, of a 



APPENDIX C. 307 

clearer white, and the patient acquired a certain sensation 
of light, which he did not seem to have had before the 
operation. 

" At the end of June, 1840, the patient, being then sev- 
enteen years of age, was brought to me. I found the con- 
dition of things as follows : Both eyes were so much in- 
verted that nearly one half the cornea was hidden. The 
left eye he could move voluntarily outward, but not with- 
out exertion; it returned immediately inward when the 
influence of the will had ceased. The left eyeball was of 
the natural size and elasticity. The patient had not the 
slightest perception of light with the right eye ; the stimu- 
lus of light had no effect on the pupil. The pupil of the 
left eye, which was not round, but drawn angularly down- 
ward and inward, did not alter in dimension with the 
movements of the eye nor from the stimulus of light. On 
examining the eye by looking straight into it through the 
pupil, the anterior wall of the capsule appeared opaque in 
its whole extent, and of a color and luster like mother-of- 
pearl. On looking from the temporal side in an oblique 
direction into the pupil, there was visible in the anterior 
wall of the capsule a very small perpendicular cleft of 
about one line and a quarter in length. 

" This cleft was situated so far from the center of the 
pupil that it was entirely covered by the iris. With this 
eye the patient had a perception of light, and was even 
capable of perceiving colors of an intense and decided 
tone. He believed himself, moreover, able to perceive 
about one third of a square inch of any bright object, if 
held at the distance of half an inch or an inch from the 
eye, and obliquely in such a direction as to reflect the light 
strongly toward the pupil. But this, I am convinced, was 
a mere delusion, for all rays of light falling in the direc- 
tion of the optic axis must have been intercepted and re- 
flected by the opaque capsule. By these rays, therefore, 
a perception of light, indeed, might be conveyed, but cer- 
tainly no perception of objects. On the other hand, it 
seems probable that the lateral cleft in the capsule per- 
mitted rays of light to pass into the interior of the eye, 
But as this small aperture was situated entirely behind 
the iris, those rays only would have permeated which came 



308 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. 

in a very oblique direction from the temporal side. Ad- 
mitting, then, these rays of light to pass through the cleft, 
still on account of their obliquity they could produce but 
a very imperfect image, because they impinged upon an 
unfavorable portion of the retina. Moreover, I satisfied 
myself by experiments, that the patient could not in the 
least discern objects by sight. My experiments led me to 
the conclusion that his belief that he really saw objects 
resulted solely from his imagination combined with his 
power of reasoning. In feeling an object and bringing it 
in contact with the eyelids and the cheek, an idea of the 
object was produced, which was judged of and corrected 
according to the experience he had gained by constant 
practice. 

" The patient's sense of touch had attained an extraor- 
dinary degree of perfection. In order to examine an ob- 
ject minutely he conveyed it to his lips. 

" On the 10th of July, 1840, I performed an operation 
on the left eye. The light was so painful to him that I 
could not try any experiments immediately after the opera- 
tion. Both eyes were closed with narrow strips of court- 
plaster, and treated with iced water for forty-eight hours. 
The patient suffered from muscce volitantes, and could not 
bear even a mild degree of light falling on the closed lids. 
After the lapse of a few weeks, the muscce volitantes were 
greatly mitigated, and the intolerance of light ceased. 

" On opening the eye for the first time on the third 
day after the operation, I asked the patient what he could 
see; he answered that he saw an extensive field of light, 
in which everything appeared dull, confused, and in mo- 
tion. He could not distinguish objects. The pain pro- 
duced by the light forced him to close the eye imme- 
diately. 

" Two days afterward the eye, which had been kept 
closed by means of court-plaster, was again opened. He 
now described what he saw as a number of opaque watery 
spheres, which moved with the movements of the eye, but 
when the eye was at rest remained stationary, and then 
partly covered each other. Two days after this the eye 
was again opened. The same phenomena were again ob- 
served, but the spheres were less opaque and somewhat 



APPENDIX c. 309 

transparent ; their movements more steady ; they appeared 
to cover each other more than before. He was now 
for the first time able, as he said, to look through the 
spheres, and to perceive a difference, but merely a differ- 
ence, in the surrounding objects. When he directed his 
eye steadily toward an object, the visual impression pro- 
duced by the object was painful and very imperfect, be- 
cause the eye, on account of its intolerance of light, could 
not be kept open long enough for the formation of the 
idea as derived from visual sensation. The appearance of 
spheres diminished daily; they became smaller, clearer, 
and more pellucid, allowed objects to be seen more dis- 
tinctly, and disappeared entirely after two weeks. The 
muscm volitantes, which had the form of black, immov- 
able, and horizontal stripes, appeared, every time the eye 
was opened, in a direction upward and inward. When 
the eye was closed he observed, especially in the evening, 
in an outward and upward direction, an appearance of 
dark blue, violet, and red colors ; these colors became gradu- 
ally less intense, were shaded into bright orange, yellow, 
and green, which latter colors alone eventually remained, 
and in the course of five weeks disappeared entirely. As 
soon as the intolerance of light had so far abated that the 
patient could observe an object without pain, and for a 
sufficient time to gain an idea of it, the following experi- 
ments were made on different days. 

" First Experiment. — Silk ribbons of different colors, 
fastened on a black ground, were employed to show the 
complementary colors. The patient recognized the differ- 
ent colors, with the exception of yellow and green, which 
he frequently confounded, but could distinguish when both 
were exhibited at the same time. He could point out each 
color correctly when a variety was shown him at the same 
time. Gray pleased him best ; the effect of red, orange, 
and yellow was painful ; that of violet and brown not pain- 
ful, but disagreeable. Black produced subjective colors, 
and white occasioned the recurrence of muscce volitantes 
in a most vehement degree. 

" Second Experiment. — The patient sat with his back 
to the light, and kept his eye closed. A sheet of paper on 
which two strong black lines had been drawn, the one 
23 



310 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

horizontal, the other vertical, was placed before him, at the 
distance of about three feet. He was now allowed to open 
the eye, and after attentive examination he called the lines 
by their right denominations. When I asked him to point 
out with his finger the horizontal line, he moved his hand 
slowly, as if feeling, and pointed to the vertical ; but after 
a short time, observing his error, he corrected himself. 
The outline in black of a square [six inches in diameter], 
within which a circle had been drawn, and within the lat- 
ter a triangle, was, after careful examination, recognized 
and correctly described by him. When he was asked to 
point out either of the figures, he never moved his hand 
directly and decidedly, but always as if feeling, and with 
the greatest caution ; he pointed them out, however, cor- 
rectly. A zigzag and a spiral line, both drawn on a sheet 
of paper, he observed to be different, but could not describe 
them otherwise than by imitating their forms with his 
finger in the air. He said he had no idea of those figures. 
"«. Third Experiment. — The windows of the room were 
darkened, with the exception of one, toward which the 
patient, closing his eye, turned his back. At the distance 
of three feet, and on a level with the eye, a solid cube and 
a sphere, each of four inches diameter, were placed before 
him. I now let him open his eye. After attentively ex- 
amining these bodies, he said he saw a quadrangular and 
a circular figure, and after some consideration he pro- 
nounced the one a square and the other a dish. His eye 
being then closed, the cube was taken away, and a disk of 
equal size substituted and placed next to the sphere. On 
again opening his eye he observed no difference in these 
objects, but regarded them both as disks. The solid cube 
was now placed in a somewhat oblique position before the 
eye, and close beside it a figure cut out of pasteboard, 
representing a plane outline prospect of the cube when in 
this position. Both objects he took to be something like 
flat quadrates. A pyramid, placed before him with one of 
its sides toward his eye, he saw as a plane triangle. This 
object was now turned a little, so as to present two of its 
sides to view, but rather more of one side than of the other ; 
after considering and examining it for a long time, he said 
that this was a very extraordinary figure ; it was neither a 



APPENDIX C. 311 

triangle, nor a quadrangle, nor a circle ; lie had no idea of 
it, and could not describe it. ' In fact,' said lie, ' I must 
give it up.' On the conclusion of these experiments I 
asked him to describe the sensations the objects had pro- 
duced, whereupon he said that immediately on opening 
his eye he had discovered a difference in the two objects, 
the cube and the sphere, placed before him, and perceived 
that they were not drawings ; but that he had not been 
able to form from them the idea of a square and a disk, 
until he jjwceived a sensation of ivliat lie saw in the points 
of his fingers, as if he really touched the objects. When 
I gave the three bodies, the sphere, cube, and pyramid, 
into his hand, he was 'much surprised that he had not 
recognized them as such by sight, as he was well ac- 
quainted with them by touch. These experiments prove 
the correctness of the hypothesis I have advanced else- 
where on the well-known question put by Mr. Molyneux 
to Locke, which was answered by both these gentlemen in 
the negative. 

"Fourth Experiment. — In a vessel containing water to 
about the depth of one foot was placed a musket-ball, and 
on the surface of the water a piece of pasteboard of the 
same form, size, and color as the ball. The patient could 
perceive no difference in the position of these bodies ; he 
believed both to be upon the surface of the water. Point- 
ing to the ball, I desired him to take up this object. He 
made an attempt to take it from the plane of the water ; 
but, when he found he could not grasp it there, he said he 
had deceived himself, the objects were lying in the water, 
upon which I informed him of their real position. I now 
desired him to touch the ball which lay in the water with 
a small rod. He attempted this several times, but always 
missed his aim. He could never touch the object at the 
first movement of his hand toward it, but only by feeling 
about with the rod. On being questioned with respect to 
reflected light, he said that he was always obliged to bear 
in mind that the looking-glass was fastened to the wall in 
order to correct his idea of the apparent situation of ob- 
jects behind the glass. 

" When the patient first acquired the faculty of sight, 
all objects appeared to him so near that he was sometimes 



312 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

afraid of coming in contact with them, though they were 
in reality at a great distance from him. He saw every- 
thing much larger than he had supposed from the idea 
obtained by his sense of touch. Moving and especially 
living objects, such as men, horses, etc., appeared to him 
very large. If he wished to form an estimate of the dis- 
tance of objects from his own person or of two objects 
from each other without moving from his place, he exam- 
ined the objects from different points of view by turning 
his head to the right and to the left. Of perspective in 
pictures he had, of course, no idea ; it appeared to him 
unnatural that the figure of a man represented in the 
front ota picture should be larger than a house or mount- 
ain in the background. All objects appeared to him per- 
fectly flat. Thus, although he very well knew by his 
touch that the nose was prominent and the eyes sunk 
deeper . in the head, he saw the human face only as a 
plane. Though he possessed an excellent memory, this 
faculty was at first quite deficient as regarded visible ob- 
jects : he was not able, for example, to recognize visitors, 
unless he heard them speak, till he had seen them very 
frequently. Even when he had seen an object repeatedly 
he could form no idea of its visible qualities without hav- 
ing the real object before him. Heretofore when he 
dreamed of any persons, of his parents, for instance, he 
felt them and heard their voices, but never saw them ; but 
now, after having seen them frequently, he saw them also 
in his dreams. The human face pleased him more than 
any other object. Although the newly-acquired sense af- 
forded him many pleasures, the great number of strange 
and extraordinary sights was often disagreeable and wea- 
risome to him. He said that he saw too much novelty 
which he could not comprehend; and, even though he 
could see both near and remote objects very well, he would 
nevertheless continually have recourse to the use of the 
sense of touch." 

Final Remarks. 

To the seven reports upon cases of persons born blind 
and afterward surgically treated, which are here presented 
in abridged form from the English originals, may be 



APPENDIX C. 313 

added some more recent and more accessible ones, one by 
Hirschberg (" Archiv fur Opthalmologie," xxi, 1. Abth., S. 
29 bis 42, 1875), one by A. von Hippel (ibid., xxi, 2. Abtli., 
S. 101), and one by Dufour (" Archives des Sciences phy- 
siques et naturelles," lviii, No. 242, April, 1877, p. 420). 
The cases reported here are those most discussed. I have 
given them considerably in detail in order that the reader 
may form an independent judgment concerning the be- 
havior of persons born blind and then operated upon, as 
that behavior is described before the modern physiological 
controversy over empiricism and nativism. Helmholtz 
(" Physiologische Optik," § 28) mentions, besides those 
of Chesselden and Wardrop and Ware, which he gives in 
abridged form, some other cases also. Others still may 
be found in Froriep's " Notizen " (xi, p. 177, 1825, and iv, 
p. 243, 1837, also xxi, p. 41, 1842), partly reported, partly 
cited (the latter according to Franz). 

In addition to the cases here given of persons born 
blind and then surgically treated — persons not able to see 
things in space-relations before becoming blind — one more 
case is to be mentioned ; it is that of a girl who in her sev- 
enth year (probably in consequence of the effect of dazzling 
sunlight) lost her sight completely, but recovered it again 
at the age of seventeen years after being treated with elec- 
tricity. She had to begin absolutely anew to learn to 
name colors like a child; all measure of distance, per- 
spective, size, had been lost for her by lack of practice (as 
0. Heyf elder relates in his work " Die Kindheit des Men- 
schen," second edition, Erlangen, 1858, pp. 12-15). He 
says, p. 12, that the patient had been eight years blind ; p. 
13, that she had been ten years so. Such cases prove the 
great influence of experience upon vision in space, and 
show how little of this vision is inborn in mankind. 

When we compare the acquirement of sight by the 



314 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those 
born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the lat- 
ter in general could make use of only one eye, and also 
that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the 
absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence 
of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences 
exist. Notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement 
in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the 
eye is practiced, and the association of sight and touch is 
acquired. The seventh case in particular shows plainly 
how strong the analogies are. 

These cases are sufficient to refute some singular asser- 
tions, e. g., that all the newly-born must see objects re- 
versed, as even a Buffon (" (Euvres completes," iv, 136 ; 
Paris, 1844) thought to be the fact. My boy, when I had 
him write, in his fifth year, the ordinary figures after a 
copy that I set for him, imitated the most of them, to my 
surprise, always in a reversed hand (Spiegelschrif t, " mir- 
ror-hand ") ; the 1 and the 4 he continued longest to 
write thus, though he often made the 4 the other way, 
too, whereas he always wrote the 5 correctly. This, how- 
ever, was, of course, not owing to imperfect sight, but to 
incomplete transformation of the visual idea into the 
motor idea required for writing. Other boys, as I am 
given to understand, do the same thing. For myself, I 
found the distinction between " right " and " left " so dif- 
ficult in my childhood, that I remember vividly the trouble 
I had with it. 

Singularly enough, Buffon assumed, in 1749, that the 
neglect of the double images does not yet take place at the 
beginning of life. Johannes Mittler, in 1826, expresses 
the same view. But, inasmuch as in the first two or three 
weeks after the birth of a human being, in contrast with 
many animals, nothing at all can as yet be distinctly seen, 



ArPENDIX c. 315 

it is not allowable to maintain that everything must be 
seen double. Rather is it true that everything is seen 
neither single nor double, since the very young child per- 
ceives, as yet, no forms (boundary-lines) and no distances, 
but merely receives impressions of light, precisely as is the 
case with the person born blind, in the period directly 
after an operation has been performed upon his eyes. 

Schopenhauer (in his treatise on " Sight and Colors," 
first edition, Leipsic, 1816, p. 14) divined this truth. He 
says, " If a person who was looking out upon a wide and 
beautiful prospect could be in an instant wholly deprived 
of his intellect, then nothing of all the view would remain 
for him except the sensation of a very manifold reaction 
of his retina, which is, as it were, the raw material out of 
which his intellect created that view." 

The new-born child has, as yet, no intellect, and there- 
fore can not, as yet, at the beginning, see ; he can merely 
have the sensation of light. 

This opinion of mine, derived from observation of the 
behavior of newly-born and of very young infants (cf. the 
first chapter of this book), seems to me to be practically 
confirmed in an account given by Anselm von Feuerbach 
in his work on Kaspar Hauser (Anspach, 1832, p. 77). 

" In the year 1828, soon after his arrival in Nurem- 
berg, Kaspar Hauser was to look out at the window in the 
Vestner Tower, from which there was a view of a broad 
and many-colored summer landscape. Kaspar Hauser 
turned away ; the sight was repugnant to him. At a later 
period, long after he had learned to speak, he gave, when 
questioned, the following explanation : 

" ' When I looked toward the window it always seemed 
to me as if a shutter had been put up close before my eyes, 
and that upon this shutter a colorer had wiped off his 
brushes of different colors, white, blue, green, yellow, and 



316 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 

red, all in motley confusion. Individual things, as I now 
see them, I could not, at that time, perceive and distin- 
guish upon it ; it was absolutely hideous to look upon.' " 

By this, as w ell as by the experiences with persons born 
blind and afterward surgically treated, it is clearly demon- 
strated that colors and degrees of brightness are severally 
apprehended before forms and distances can be perceived. 
The case must be the same with the normal human child 
in the first weeks after birth. 

After discrimination of the luminous sensations, the 
boundary-lines of bright plane surfaces are next clearly 
discerned ; then come forms, and, last of all, the distances 
of these. 

With reference to this progress of the normal infant 
in learning to see, the accounts of persons born blind and 
afterward surgically treated are again of great value. 
After the famous question put by Molyneux to Locke, 
whether an intelligent person, blind from birth, would be 
able immediately after an operation to distinguish a sphere 
from a cube by means of the eye alone, had been answered 
in the negative, the opinion was accepted as satisfactory 
that such a person learns the distinction only by means of 
the sense of touch. Thus, the perception of difference 
would come later, after the sight of different forms, only 
by means of the tactual memory. 

In truth, however, very many forms are discerned as 
different purely by means of the eye, without the possi- 
bility of aid from any other sense. Phenomena exclusively 
optical, which, like the rainbow, can not be apprehended 
by touch or by hearing, are distinctly perceived by the child 
at a very early period. Without touching, the different 
forms of objects would be perceived by means of sight 
alone, and that even by a child unable to touch, through 
movements of the eyes and head, changes of bodily posi- 



APPENDIX C. 317 

tion, of attitude and posture, and through practice in 
accommodation and in the observation of differences of 
brightness. 

The fact correctly predicted by Molyneux, that those 
born blind but afterward surgically treated can not, by 
means of the eye alone, distinguish the form of a sphere 
from that of a cube, must accordingly be supplemented to 
this extent, viz., that such persons are capable, just as are 
normal children who can see, of learning this difference 
of form by means of the eye alone without the direct in- 
tervention, of the sense of touch ; for the co-ordination of 
the retinal excitations in space and time by means of the 
intellect, quite independently of all impressions from other 
departments of sense, is possible, and is in countless cases 
actual, just as is the learning of differences of form solely 
by means of the sense of touch in children who are born 
blind and never learn to see. 



THE END. 



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